The September MG@Heart Book Club pick is….
HURRICANE SEASON, by Nicole Melleby!
For Fig’s dad, hurricane season brings the music.
For Fig, hurricane season brings the possibility of disaster.
Fig, a sixth grader, loves her dad and the home they share in a beachside town. She does not love the long months of hurricane season. Her father, a once-renowned piano player, sometimes goes looking for the music in the middle of a storm. Hurricane months bring unpredictable good and bad days. More than anything, Fig wants to see the world through her father’s eyes, so she takes an art class to experience life as an artist does. Then Fig’s dad shows up at school, confused and looking for her. Not only does the class not bring Fig closer to understanding him, it brings social services to their door.
As the walls start to fall around her, Fig is sure it’s up to her alone to solve her father’s problems and protect her family’s privacy. But with the help of her best friend, a cute girl at the library, and a surprisingly kind new neighbor, Fig learns she isn’t as alone as she once thought . . . and begins to compose her own definition of family.
Nicole Melleby’s Hurricane Season is a radiant and tender novel about taking risks and facing danger, about friendship and art, and about growing up and coming out. And more than anything else, it is a story about love—both its limits and its incredible healing power.
A 2019 Skipping Stones Book Award Winner
“Melleby’s debut offers a tender, earnest
portrait of a daughter searching for constancy while negotiating her father’s
sickness and the social challenges of tween girlhood, including her first crush
on a girl.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Father and daughter find their way back to each
other in this moving novel, and readers will root for Fig every step of the
way.”
—Bookish
“Melleby doesn’t shy away from how terrifying it
is to watch someone in a dangerously manic state, but the narrative never tips
into melodrama. A thoughtful portrayal of mental illness with queer content
that avoids coming-out clichés.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Melleby deftly tackles weighty topics—mental
illness, child protective services, single parenting, sexuality—while
effortlessly weaving in elements of the life and works of Vincent van Gogh,
creating a thoughtful, age-appropriate and impressive novel.”
—Shelf Awareness, starred
review
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