Kelly, Erin Entrada. Those Kids from Fawn Creek. Greenwillow, 03/2022. 336pp. Fiction. GRADES 6 – 7. $17.99. 978-0-0629-7035-0. HIGH ADDITIONAL.
The twelve, all white, seventh graders at Louisiana’s Fawn Creek Middle School have been stuck together all their lives, and that long history is beginning to feel like a life sentence. Then Orchid Mason arrives–born in New York, lived in Paris, wearing a flower behind her ear–and suddenly change seems possible. While the plot is a classic (an outsider shakes up an insular community’s status quo), Kelly includes a twist. There are lots of resonant specifics about the minute hierarchies of adolescence. The characters’ snarky, bashful, world-weary, and earnest voices are pitch-perfect and often amusing. Students stuck in the midst of the most self-conscious time of life will relish this comingof-age story that explores the tantalizing possibility of self-definition. Among the characters there is diversity of economics, social capital, sexual orientation, and level of religiosity. Entrada explains the town is based on homogeneous farm towns near where she grew up.
Melissa McAvoy—Retired