All That's Missing
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
When his grandfather’s dementia raises the specter of foster care, Arlo flees to find his only other family member in this genuine, heartening novel. Arlo’s grandfather travels in time. Not literally — he just mixes up the past with the present. Arlo holds on as best he can, fixing himself cornflakes for dinner and paying back the owner of the corner store for the sausages Poppo eats without remembering to pay. But how long before someone finds out that Arlo is taking care of the grandfather he lives with instead of the other way around? When Poppo lands in the hospital and a social worker comes to take charge, Arlo’s fear of foster care sends him alone across three hundred miles. Armed with a name and a town, Arlo finds his only other family member — the grandmother he doesn’t remember ever meeting. But just finding her isn’t enough to make them a family. Unfailingly honest and touched with a dash of magical realism, Sarah Sullivan’s evocative debut novel delves into a family mystery and unearths universal truths about home, trust, friendship, and strength — all the things a boy needs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eleven-year-old orphan Arlo's life with his grandfather has been tricky for some time: Poppo's memory isn't what it used to be. The situation worsens after Poppo has a stroke, and Arlo is forced into a children's shelter. Determined to find his one living relative, a grandmother who hasn't seen him in nearly a decade, Arlo hops a bus to Edgewater, Va. But his grandmother, Ida, turns out to be pretty "prickly" ("Poppo was in danger. And here Arlo was, 350 miles away, staying with a woman who was supposed to care about him but who seemed to have the heart of an armadillo"). Slowly, Arlo makes a friend a girl named Maywood and patches together the history of his fractured family. Meanwhile, a suspicious realtor is aggressively attempting to purchase Ida's house. In a novel laced with mystery and a hint of the supernatural, picture book author Sullivan (Passing the Music Down) creates a strong small-town atmosphere through Edgewater's citizens, young and old. A quietly affecting coming-of-age story about finding family and confronting change. Ages 8 12.
