when friendship followed me home by paul griffin

Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school.

Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. Those familiar with Griffin’s books for teens know that Kleenex may be needed to successfully navigate this wrenching journey, which breathes fresh, warm life into what might have been an overworked cliché.Įntrancing, magical, tragic, and uplifting.Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Together he and Halley compose an otherworldly tale, The Magic Box, that’s a parable of their lives. It’s irrepressible Halley, her health faltering, and her gentle parents who teach him how to cope with loss without forgetting how to love, even when that love is perilous. What resilient, generous Ben, in a lifetime of foster care punctuated by loss, hasn’t learned is how to believe in the lasting power of love. What could go wrong here? After he discovers his dead mom on the floor, Ben’s remote but well-intentioned aunt and abusive, bumbling uncle, the pair constantly at odds, become his reluctant new parents. Most worryingly, the endearingly depicted Halley, his fully rounded new best friend, also white and the daughter of a so-perceptive librarian and a funny magician, is undergoing chemotherapy. The charming mite of a stray dog that adopts the white boy is also old. Twelve-year-old Ben, who has taken most of his life lessons from reading Star Wars stories, is the adoptive son of a loving and understanding but elderly lesbian.

A former foster child deals with love and loss and love again.

When friendship followed me home by paul griffin