My publisher, Little, Brown, is hosting a Goodreads giveaway for my forthcoming novel, COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS. 20 copies available! Giveaway runs through June 23, 2014. Enter today!
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/96742
Early praise for COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS
Like Sarah Nelson in Harrington’s Sure Signs of Crazy (Little, Brown, 2013/VOYA December 2013), Mysti Murphy must navigate a treacherous home situation. Mysti’s mother did not try to drown her, but her mother’s agoraphobia wields despotic control over the family’s life. Then, Mysti’s father tumbles headfirst from a tree and spends the next five months hospitalized, leaving Mysti to take care of her mother and younger sister, Laura. Mysti finds strength and comfort in her ability to make up stories for Laura and come up with daily jokes to connect with her homebound mother. Her seventh-grade school days are as troubling as her family situation, now that her longtime male friend, Anibal Gomez, spent his summer losing weight, bought a beret, and is working on becoming a hipster. He is determined to connect with cheerleader Sandy Showalter, earning his props by humiliating Mysti again and again in front of her peers. In addition to escaping through her stories and jokes, she finds consolation with two occupants of the cafeteria’s “loser island”—brainiac Wayne Kovok, who reminds everyone that his last name is an acronym and spouts “did you know” factoids; and Rama Khan, whose rainbow hijabs and loyalty gradually make her the one-word super-heroine Ramakhan to Mysti.
At age twelve, Mysti may be too wise for her years, but her wickedly good schemes to get even with Anibal and her courageous solutions to family crises will make her a compelling protagonist for sophisticated young readers. -VOYA, starred review (June 1, 2014)
A wrenching and rewarding read. - Booklist, starred review
