The Decomposition of Jack
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning author Kristin O’Donnell Tubb delivers a funny and poignant middle grade contemporary novel about family and friendship as Jack deals with his parents’ divorce while also searching for a mysterious cougar in the Tennessee hills. Perfect for fans of Leslie Connor and Lynda Mullaly Hunt. A Junior Library Guild Selection!
Middle school is always hard, but when you’re known as the Roadkill Kid, well, it’s even harder. Jack’s mom collects roadkill—it’s her job, and she’s very good at it. Ever since Jack’s mom and dad got divorced, Jack has stepped into the role of Mom’s co-scientist.
One day while tending to the roadkill garden, Jack believes he spots a cougar in the wilderness beyond his backyard. A cougar in Tennessee? They’re supposed to be extinct. So, when Jack has to choose an animal to research for his Earth Science class, he picks cougar.
As pressure mounts on Jack to complete his project and to be Mom’s business partner, the mystery of the cougar feels too big to solve. Jack knows what the decomposition of an animal—and a family—looks like, so can he figure out how to bring them back to life?
STEM for Kids: Jack may be the "Roadkill Kid," but he uses real scientific observation to track a mysterious cougar for his Earth Science project.Quirky Humor: Laugh-out-loud moments abound when your mom’s job is collecting roadkill and your backyard is a "Roadkill Garden" full of her experiments.Environmental Themes: A thought-provoking look at conservation and what happens when an animal believed to be extinct suddenly reappears in the Tennessee hills.Heartfelt Family Story: Navigates the messy, confusing, and sometimes funny decomposition of a family after divorce, and the hard work of putting the pieces back together.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A self-aware seventh grader with a roadkill researcher mother ruminates on life, maturation, and decomposition in this jam-packed observational novel from O'Donnell Tubb (The Story Collector). Following his parents' divorce, Jack Acosta spends most of his time helping his mom with her research, scraping roadkill from asphalt and recording details about recent finds, while developing an interest in photography. At school, he navigates a crush and contends with bullies who call him the Roadkill Kid. But tensions build after Jack observes a cougar from the family's roadkill-riddled backyard, and chooses the mammal—thought to be extinct in Tennessee—for a school project. The cougar poses a "data nightmare" for his mother, who'd like to chase it off, but Jack becomes interested in confirming the animal's presence, which results in his advocating for his own identity outside of helping his mom. Incorporating the stages of decomposition as a means of describing his parents' divorce, Jack's wry first-person narration highlights his own concerns and growth, changing family dynamics, and lessons around conservation. Jack reads as white; other characters are racially ambiguous. A detailed author's note contextualizes the book's scientific content. Ages 8–12.
