Ode to a Nobody
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A devastating tornado tears apart more than just houses in this striking novel in verse about a girl rebuilding herself.
Before the storm, thirteen-year-old Quinn was happy flying under the radar. She was average. Unremarkable. Always looking for an escape from her house, where her bickering parents fawned over her genius big brother.
Inside our broken home / we didn’t know how broken / the world outside was.
But after the storm, Quinn can’t seem to go back to average. Her friends weren't affected by the tornado in the same way. To them, the storm left behind a playground of abandoned houses and distracted adults. As Quinn struggles to find stability in the tornado’s aftermath, she must choose: between homes, friendships, and versions of herself.
Nothing that was mine / yesterday is mine today.
Told in rich, spectacular verse, Caroline Brooks DuBois crafts a powerful story of redemption as Quinn makes her way from Before to After. There’s nothing average about the world Quinn wakes up to after the storm; maybe there’s nothing average about her, either. This emotional coming-of-age journey for middle grade readers proves that it’s never too late to be the person you want to be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A class poetry assignment helps an aimless 13-year-old grapple with the aftermath of a devastating tornado in this graceful and perceptive novel in verse. Quinn Nash is content to drift through eighth grade, invisibly living in the shadow of her "perfect" college-age brother, gaming and learning skating tricks with lifelong best friend Jack and charismatic new friend Jade, and mediating her parents' arguments, but her life is upended when a tornado sweeps through her neighborhood, destroying the family's house: "Nothing that was mine/ yesterday is mine today." Deeply affected by the devastation, Quinn surveys the Tennessee town's damage and, while helping cleanup efforts, discovers pleasure and value in both volunteer work and in writing a poem each day. To her uneasiness, Jack and Jade, personally untouched by the disaster, revel in the lawless freedom of preoccupied adults and canceled school, engaging in vandalism that creates a gulf between the formerly inseparable friends. In three free-verse sections, attentive word choice from Brooks DuBois (The Places We Sleep) exhibits the healing power of writing, charting Quinn's evolution from passive and insecure observer to conscientious aspiring poet. Characters default to white. Ages 8–12.
