How Can a Kid Today Hear His Inner Voice?
Summary
In HERE IN THE REAL WORLD (Balzer + Bray, 308 pp., $17.99; ages 8 to 12), Sara Pennypacker’s captivating new novel, 11-year-old Ware pushes back against the hubbub by taking a stand for silence, discovering his true calling along the way. While his parents were working double shifts in order to earn enough money to buy their rental house, Ware was going to stay with his grandmother, known as Big Deal, and meditatively build a model castle on her dining room table. But when Big Deal falls and requires a hip replacement and a hospital stay, Ware is banished to summer “Rec” at the local community center. At first, Jolene rebuffs Ware’s optimistic assertions that they can make the lot their own, claiming he lives in “Magic Fairness Land” while she’s still “here in the real world.” But despite their contradictory natures, the two work together to create a ramshackle Eden, complete with life-size castle, moat and garden, out of the church’s broken walls and razed ground. Ware is working through the effects of overhearing his more socially skilled parents wonder, “Why can’t we have a normal kid?” Jolene, a self-described realist, tries to understand why her mother left her on her alcoholic aunt’s doorstep like so much rubbish.