Not Nothing
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 27 Aug 2024
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- 12,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
"The book we all need at the time we all need it.” —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Award–winning author of The One and Only Ivan
In this middle grade novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman, a boy who has been assigned to spend his summer volunteering at a senior living facility learns unexpected lessons that change the trajectory of his life.
To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father’s gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he’s now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn’t matter at all, like he’s nothing.
So when a kid at school actually tells him he’s nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie. There, he meets Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago, and Maya-Jade, the granddaughter of one of the residents with an overblown sense of importance.
Unlike Alex, Maya-Jade believes that people care about what she thinks, and that she can make a difference. And when Alex and Josey form an unlikely bond, with Josey confiding in him, Alex starts to believe he can make a difference—a good difference—in the world. If he can truly feel he matters, Alex may be able to finally rise to the occasion of his own life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twelve-year-old, white-cued Alex's mother has been missing for almost a year. Now sleeping on a lumpy couch in the home of his indifferent aunt and uncle, Alex harbors a simmering anger that soon boils over into an act of violence. A sympathetic social worker provides Alex the opportunity to avoid juvenile detention by spending the summer working at Shady Glen Retirement Home; once there, he immediately picks a fight with another volunteer. But with limited options—and nothing better to do—he returns to Shady Glen and meets 107-year-old Josey Kravitz, a Polish Holocaust survivor who "stopped talking and waited to die" following the death of his lost love. Drawn to Alex, Josey begins telling him the story of his doomed romance with fiercely intelligent Olka, a seamstress at his family's clothing store who teaches young Josey how to sew, a skill that would save his life. Written in second person from Josey's perspective, this tale of intergenerational friendship forged through a shared understanding of loss by Forman (Frankie and Bug) is told with spellbinding grace and wrought with exquisite structuring that quietly highlights the heartrending parallels between Josey's WWII remembrances and Alex's current struggles. Ages 10–up.
