#recently published

All the Impossible Things

by Lindsay Lackey

“There is nothing like clean middle-grade fiction,” my Aunt recently told me. 

I have long eschewed the genre finding it overly trite, predictable, and patronizing. Then I received the ARC for All the Impossible Things in the mail and with my Aunt’s wisdom ringing in my ears, I started reading.

Finally, a middle-grade story that is sweet without being saccharine and heartwarming without being cloying. The characters are nuanced and conflicted, their stories concurrently fantastical and realistic without feeling contrived or heavy-handed. 

With an addict mother in jail, Red, our tween protagonist, counts down the days until her Mom’s release and their reunion. In the meantime, she is unceremoniously shuttled between foster homes, leaving unidentifiable destruction in her wake, because, well, her emotional life is connected to the wind.

Could her latest home at the curiously fascinating Groovy Petting Zoo tame her wuthering ways? Or is she destined to destroy everything in her path just like her mother? 

This book offers parents and children a plethora of opportunities to discuss what happens when we keep all of our turmoil bottled up inside. Because if Red’s wind were a ubiquitous phenomenon among young people, I suspect that our disconnected culture would find itself with much stormier weather…

With notes of The Great Gilly HopkinsandAll the Bright Places, an added touch of magic makes this lovely little novel a worthy addition to the cannon of children’s delightful and discussion-worthy reads.  

*B3 received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

**All the Impossible Things will be released September 3, 2019.