Far from Fair

Starred review from January 4, 2016
Living in an RV is the last thing 12-year-old Odette Zyskowski wants—in fact, it tops her list of “things that aren’t fair.” But her father took a “voluntary layoff” from work, and the family is selling its California house to care for Odette’s ailing grandmother in Washington State. The family (along with Odette’s new dog and her younger brother’s ferret) sets off on an eventful road trip. Between cramped quarters, car trouble, her parents’ rocky marriage, and endless hours of driving, Odette is miserable (not even running helps), and everyone knows it. Arnold’s The Question of Miracles dealt equally well with topics of leaving home and losing a loved one, and she has a knack for sympathetically expressing Odette’s confusing emotions about those events, as well as feeling disconnected from her best friend and liking a boy she meets. Arnold’s descriptive prose and short, episodic chapters warmly relay the family’s struggles. It’s an engaging, emotional ride as Odette learns the truth of one of her grandmother’s sayings: “Even in the bad... there is opportunity for good.” Ages 10–12. Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content.

December 15, 2015
Odette Zyskoski's life is being ruined by her parents' decision to sell their house and head north in an RV they've dubbed the Coach. After most of their possessions are disposed of in a garage sale, the prospect of living in tight quarters with her parents and little brother and just one cellphone among them leaves Odette feeling hurt and angry. She resents not having any say in the decision that means leaving her best friend, Mieko, and spending seventh grade being "roadschooled." The family meanders from Southern California to the Northwest coast to spend time with Grandma Sissy, whose health is declining faster than any of them realizes. On the ferry to Orcas Island, Odette meets a cute, dark-skinned boy named Harris, and they exchange phone numbers. Missed connections nearly spoil their brief friendship, bringing Odette's frustration with her parents' lack of understanding to a head. By using a third-person narration that keeps Odette at a slight remove from her family, Arnold captures the loneliness of a young teenager's inability to express the emotions that accompany life's upheavals. It's only Grandma Sissy's insight into Odette's complicated feelings--and her aphorism that "the best way out is always through"--that allows Odette to get past her difficulty coping with the unfairness of it all. An affecting, delicately handled story of growing up. (Fiction. 9-12)

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December 1, 2015
Grades 4-7 No one asked 12-year-old Odette if she wanted to sell her stuff and move into an old RV. Yet here she is, along with her parents, little brother, a ferret, and her new doga tiny wiry-haired thing, not the Lab she wantedtraveling to Grandma Sissy's on Washington's Orca Islands. Nothing about this is fair. In such tight quarters, tensions run high, and Odette fumes over the injustice of having her life turned upside down. This falls away, however, when they arrive at Sissy's and Odette can barely recognize the frail, sickly woman before her as her grandmother. Arnold explores the Death with Dignity Act as well as the strain of having an autistic sibling and parents whose marriage is on the rocks. These complex issues surround Odette as she struggles with personal lossesfriends, home, cell phonethat feel trivial in comparison but are vital to middle-schoolers. Arnold (The Question of Miracles, 2015) deals with the many bumps in the road honestly, yet maintains an onward-and-upward outlook on life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2016
Twelve-year-old Odette Zyskowski is uprooted and angry when her parents sell their house and move the family into a cramped RV. They travel up the California coast to Washington to visit her ailing grandmother, and what they find upon arrival only adds to Odette's feelings of loss. Arnold writes honestly and powerfully about family relationships, death, healing, and hope.

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)