A Duet for Home

Juvenile fiction 

     How would you describe the place you call home?  Ranch?  Split level?  Colonial?  The kind of house kids portray with crayons?  Apartment?  Condo?  Maybe, like me, you live in a trailer?

     Sadly a lot of families reside in homeless shelters...

     ...or worse as you'll see in Karina Yan Glaser's A Duet For Home.

     When June's father dies unexpectedly her mother retreats into herself, leaving June in charge of her home, herself, and her little sister.  Not surprisingly money runs out.  Much to her horror, they end up in a room in Huey House, a homeless shelter.  However, she begins to see good things about her new residence when she becomes friends with...

     Tyrell, a three year resident.  He sees it as a place he and his mom can be safe and fed while she develops the skills with which she can earn enough money to afford a place of their own.  There are other kids.  And every night he can hear a talented musician in another building practicing.  

     But change is afoot.  The mayor of the city feels that its rapidly growing number of homeless people is bad publicity.  She's instituting a new policy to keep them out of the news.  After 90 days in a shelter a family will be moved somewhere else.  They may end up in a place unfit for human habitation or too far from the public transportation necessary for commuting to jobs.  

     June and Tyrell are determined to keep Huey House and other shelters available for families to stay until they are strong enough to transition to decent housing.  But what can kids do?

     You'll be surprised.

     Glaser knows what she's writing about.  Her first post college job was with a network of homeless shelters.  She saw a policy that moved families into filthy, dangerous housing stay intact for three years.  A Duet For Home  shows our younger readers that government officials don't always act in vulnerable people's best interests.

On a purrrsonal note, this makes the 2400th book I've reviewed on this blog.  So basically over the last almost 12 years I've read and written and posted reviews of 200 books a year.  (Jules)

That's a lot of books.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the authors of those fabulous books.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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