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But while Penny embraces the question marks in her family tree, she and Porter are both ready for a real home. Living with their aging, ornery Grauntie isn’t easy, but it’s better than other places they’ve been, and they don’t want to get moved again—or worse, split up. Penny believes the key to keeping them from being bounced to another new home is getting their town of New Hope, North Carolina back on the state map. And what better way to do that than to spruce up and sell New Hope’s Finest—an old orphanage that was supposed to reopen years ago as the best attraction ever, but never did.
She’s got the creativity and the gumption to do it. And maybe knowing who you are doesn’t matter so much as knowing what you can do. But will that be enough to finally keep her and Parker in one place for good?
(306 pages)
There are a lot of books on the market out there about kids living in quirky small towns, learning some valuable lesson about life while trying to overcome a challenge. They often have quite a Southern twang to them. I've liked a few of them, but they often ring rather hollow/cliche for me.
If that category of books is a circle, then Back to the Map is lying on the edge of that circle with part of its body in the circle and part of it outside it. I think it actually gains a lot for keeping the quirkiness a little more contained than some of the other books do. Penny's passion for trading items around town and fixing junk up into art is very fun to read about, and the interesting side characters add fun distractions to the story. The central project of fixing up New Hope's Finest (a decrepit, abandoned orphanage) is very interesting to read about. I never quite could follow Penny's logic that tied selling New Hope's Finest and getting the town back on the map to gaining a forever home there, but I suppose 11-year-olds aren't known for having the soundest reasoning skills.
I think the bits I mainly didn't care for revolved around characters' quirky semi-magic "gifts" that popped up here and there, just because I don't really care for that particular trope. Others might like it more than I did, though. I also didn't really like the depiction of Porter, which offered a rather stereotypical "behaves like he has autism and has special powers" character, but I don't know enough about the issue to know whether it's actually offensive or not.
There was also a plotline about Penny's search for information about her father, whom she and her twin brother Porter have never met because their mother gave birth out of wedlock without him. All they know is that he must have been some dark ethnicity because their mother was white and they look Black. Racism is lightly touched on (Penny thinks her mother's family is extra ashamed that she and her brother were born out of wedlock and dark, and she remembers times when strangers called her a mutt), with a subtlety that I think works well in a book which is really focused on other issues. There are a lot of snippets of information about historical figures who Penny likes to "try on" as potential ancestors on her father's side, which is sweet and sad and educational all at the same time.
Basically, Back on the Map is a sweet, fun read that I enjoyed. It's probably not going on my top twenty favorites list, but that's not really saying much about its quality since I've literally read hundreds (if not thousands) of books. If you're interested in it, then go ahead and read it. You won't be disappointed.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
There are a lot of books on the market out there about kids living in quirky small towns, learning some valuable lesson about life while trying to overcome a challenge. They often have quite a Southern twang to them. I've liked a few of them, but they often ring rather hollow/cliche for me.
If that category of books is a circle, then Back to the Map is lying on the edge of that circle with part of its body in the circle and part of it outside it. I think it actually gains a lot for keeping the quirkiness a little more contained than some of the other books do. Penny's passion for trading items around town and fixing junk up into art is very fun to read about, and the interesting side characters add fun distractions to the story. The central project of fixing up New Hope's Finest (a decrepit, abandoned orphanage) is very interesting to read about. I never quite could follow Penny's logic that tied selling New Hope's Finest and getting the town back on the map to gaining a forever home there, but I suppose 11-year-olds aren't known for having the soundest reasoning skills.
I think the bits I mainly didn't care for revolved around characters' quirky semi-magic "gifts" that popped up here and there, just because I don't really care for that particular trope. Others might like it more than I did, though. I also didn't really like the depiction of Porter, which offered a rather stereotypical "behaves like he has autism and has special powers" character, but I don't know enough about the issue to know whether it's actually offensive or not.
There was also a plotline about Penny's search for information about her father, whom she and her twin brother Porter have never met because their mother gave birth out of wedlock without him. All they know is that he must have been some dark ethnicity because their mother was white and they look Black. Racism is lightly touched on (Penny thinks her mother's family is extra ashamed that she and her brother were born out of wedlock and dark, and she remembers times when strangers called her a mutt), with a subtlety that I think works well in a book which is really focused on other issues. There are a lot of snippets of information about historical figures who Penny likes to "try on" as potential ancestors on her father's side, which is sweet and sad and educational all at the same time.
Basically, Back on the Map is a sweet, fun read that I enjoyed. It's probably not going on my top twenty favorites list, but that's not really saying much about its quality since I've literally read hundreds (if not thousands) of books. If you're interested in it, then go ahead and read it. You won't be disappointed.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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