Marcella Pixley's Trowbridge Road is a glorious celebration of the power of imagination and a heartrending cautionary tale about the danger of keeping secrets. Written with compassion and eloquence, this NBA-longlisted middle-grade novel is positively luminous.
When 11-year-old June Bug meets Ziggy in the summer of 1983, they are two terribly lonely children. June Bug's father died last year from the not-yet-understood illness AIDS; Ziggy is staying with Nana Jean while his mother, a victim of domestic abuse, struggles to regain control of her life. Like in Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, the interplay between the children's real and imagined worlds is seamless and as natural as the friendship between kindred souls. Those who know "what happens to a home when it becomes a holding place for... secrets" will ache for the two children as they channel their pain and confusion through their imagination and connection with people who know how to make their love stick. --Emilie Coulter