Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up on a whim from a remainder bin. I'm always looking for things to add to my classroom library. I hadn't read it, but I generally trust anything that makes the Printz shortlist.

It's odd that so many books for young audiences feature protagonists with absent parents but so few of them actually deal with what happens to a kid with dead parents. I think this might be the only book I've ever read that deals with a kid in the foster system. Lonnie's parents died in a house fire. Lonnie's sister Lily is adopted. Lonnie is fostered out to Miss Edna. Lonnie has a lot going on. The book is him expressing himself through poetry. Or rather, processing. He's processing.

In terms of narrative thread, it's a little slow. However, in terms of character voice and investment, this is excellent. I gulped this down in about two hours and ended up almost in tears. It's heartbreaking, what Lonnie had to go through but his resilience is inspiring.

View all my reviews