Parked
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Rebecca Stead and Joan Bauer comes a scrappy, poignant, uplifting debut about family, friendship, and the importance of learning both how to offer help and how to accept it.
"A big-hearted novel with characters I wish were my friends in real life." —Gennifer Choldenko, author of the Al Capone at Alcatraz series
Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade. Cal is awkward, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her. Jeanne Ann wants Cal's help just about as much as she wants to live in a van.
As the two form a tentative friendship that grows deeper over alternating chapters, they're buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters, who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering. Debut novelist Danielle Svetcov shines a light on a big problem without a ready answer, pulling it off with the perfect balance of humor, heartbreak, and hope.
"Insightful [and] touching...Not to be missed." —Karen Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice
"For readers of Dan Gemeinhart [and] Katherine Applegate." —The Children's Book Review
"You won't be able to put it down. Trust." —ScaryMommy.com
"Relatable and beautifully told." —Commonsense Media
"Pertinent....Honest...Uplifting...Fresh." —PW
"Utterly of this moment." —Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos
"Absorbing and warmhearted." —Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series
"Realistically hopeful...Recommended." —SLC
"Sharp...Perceptive." —BCCB
"Unforgettable." —Brightly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Svetcov's pertinent debut is alternately narrated by two introspective 12-year-olds living radically different lives near San Francisco. Cal and his mother, a successful restaurateur, live in a giant glass "Rubik's Cube" house overlooking both the Golden Gate Bridge and a row of illegally parked vans. One of those vans belongs to book-obsessed Jeanne Ann and her mother, who journeyed west from Chicago after Jeanne Ann's mom quit her job as a cook. As the summer progresses, the girl is increasingly concerned that their stuffy orange van has become their new home indefinitely. When Cal knocks on the van to warn of an impending parking ticket, a strained friendship is launched. But despite Jeanne Ann's myriad difficulties living without an address, she rebukes Cal's persistent attempts to "rescue" her. She offers honest insight into today's affordable housing crisis her independence and keen observations ("Hunger is like a rug burn on the inside") are communicated frankly. Though the alternating narratives can bog down a lengthy story that feels primarily like Jeanne Ann's, uplifting final pages and the awkwardly cautious cementing of an unlikely friendship offer a fresh look to an ongoing social issue. Ages 10 14.)
