Gary D. Schmidt, two-time Newbery Honor winner (Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy; The Wednesday Wars), tells the terrific, gut-punching story of a 14-year-old boy who is the father of a baby he's never seen... a child named Jupiter.
Joseph Brook is delivered by the state of Maine to the Hurds' farm under strained circumstances. The story was that he swallowed "something bad" a kid gave him in the boys' restroom and tried to kill a teacher when she came in after him. The social worker warns the Hurds that Joseph won't wear orange, won't be touched, won't eat canned peaches and, by the way, has a baby somewhere--but the eager foster family is undaunted. Twelve-year-old Jack Hurd knows Joseph is an okay guy when the family cow, Rosie, takes a liking to him: "You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him," says Jack.
Orbiting Jupiter grabs readers by the collar right away, with Jack's direct, plain-spoken voice bursting with heart. Jack is a person anyone would want as a foster brother or friend. He doesn't play games, he's loyal, he pulls Joseph off the treacherous river ice and out of a school fight. He tells him he's glad he's around. Joseph warms up to Jack, too, but he's haunted by his past. At night he cries out the pet name of his true love: the baby's mother, Maddie.
The cold Maine winter is like a character in its own right; the ice and darkness seep into the pages: "And sunset closed the day with a quick wink. No kidding. One minute it was bright daylight, and then you turned your back and it was full dark, like it was trying to catch you." One silver moonlit night, sitting around the fire after ice-skating on the frozen pond with Jack and his parents, Joseph says, "I have to see Jupiter. Will you help me?"
The odds are stacked against Joseph ever reuniting with his baby, and his sinister, abusive father isn't helping matters. In fact, readers will want to scream out warnings, like in a horror movie, whenever Mr. Brook comes around the farm. To the bitter end, the Hurds remain as comfortingly steadfast and true as "the smell of hay and old wood and leather and cow" of their barn. Love doesn't conquer all in this spare, masterful novel, but it's a force to be reckoned with. --Karin Snelson, children's editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: A tough-but-tender teen father finds love in a foster family in this heart-wrenching novel by two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt.