The Heights, the Depths, and Everything in Between
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“[A] satisfying tale of platonic best friends.”—Booklist
It's the 1970s, and Lucy can’t imagine anything worse than being a giant with the last name of Small . . . unless it’s entering junior high: a whole new set of kids with the same old jokes. Even worse, her dad has headed out of town to “find himself.” At least she still has Jake, the friend she’s been with since forever. And when school begins, they get each other through everything, from the humiliation of stinking at basketball (Lucy) to the agonies of Mom’s new boyfriend (Jake). Then Jake starts hanging out with resident bad boy Gary Geary. Lucy can’t help worrying about Jake, but somehow her heart races every time Gary looks her in the eye.
Despite everything, Lucy and Jake know they can count on each other . . . until their friendship is tested in an unexpected way. Will they be able to stick together? Or is junior high when things change for good? This fastpaced, entertaining, humorous story about friendship and loyalty vividly captures the highs and lows of growing up.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's 1977, and 13-year-old narrator Lucy Small and Jake Little are "ticking down to the dog days of summer" in a Delaware subdivision called The Heights. Their surnames are apt only in Jake's case: he is a dwarf, and Lucy is very tall for her age, at five foot ten. Despite the Mutt-and-Jeff teasing, they've been best friends forever, and leave elementary school with great trepidation, knowing, "We were bound to be the junior high freak show." They share a common hurt: both their fathers are gone. Jake's has remarried, Lucy's is "finding himself" out west. When school starts, the two find themselves moving apart, as Lucy parlays her height into a spot on the basketball team ("You can't teach tall!" the coach enthuses), and Jake hooks up with Gary, a sweet but troubled kid who's been left back twice. The concerns of the novel often seem more like high school issues than seventh-grade problems, and the plot takes a while to get going. Lucy, however, is a companionable narrator, clear-eyed and compassionate, funny and smart. Though she's the teller, the tale is mostly Jake's, as he clashes with his overprotective mother and, plaintively, struggles with his difference. "Who's gonna ever want to be with me?" he asks, giving voice to a worry that most adolescents have at some point, no matter what their size: "Sometimes I feel so all alone I can't even see straight." Ages 10-up.
