Hope Is a Ferris Wheel

March 3, 2014
Herrera's vivid debut introduces a contemplative girl who finds an unlikely community at her new school. Ostracized for living in a trailer park (and, according to her classmates, having a mullet), Star decides to launch a school club, hoping to make friends. Her second attemptâa club about Emily Dickinsonâactually attracts a handful of members, including an offbeat girl and two boys who are always in detention. As Star faces painful realities about her own family and continued prejudice at school, even from her teacher, her fellow club members come to her rescue in surprising and frequently heartening ways. Star's motivations for reaching out to her classmates are pure and affecting (she initially forms a trailer park club to "teach our members all the good things in trailer parks so that they'd stop thinking trailer parks were full of trash"). Despite Star's demoralizing circumstances, she maintains optimism, exploring her emotions through confessional vocabulary-word sentences, and without resorting to empty affirmations. A tender and truthful novel that addresses stereotypes without promising easy answers or cookie-cutter closure. Ages 8â12. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger.

February 15, 2014
Debut author Herrera deftly combines family drama with a school and friendship story. Ten-year-old Star Mackie lives with her older sister and their mother in a trailer park in Northern California. Her first-person narrative takes place during the fall of her fifth-grade year. New to the area, Star struggles to make friends at school, worries about her increasingly moody sister and wonders about the father she's never known. The author handles the Mackie family's financial and domestic situation with delicacy and respect, allowing readers to gradually get to know the difficulties her characters face. At home and at school, there's plenty packed into a few short weeks, from a trip to ferret out family secrets to repeated detentions and a food fight. Some readers may find the overall story arc predictable, and unfortunately, charismatic secondary characters occasionally outshine Star. Homework assignments inserted throughout provide additional background information and some mild humor, though Star's observations can seem naive. By contrast, the poems and ideas shared by Star and the members of her Emily Dickinson Club are intriguing and inspiring if not especially childlike in tone. Well-constructed, thought-provoking and appealing, this first effort bodes well for the author's future despite some minor missteps. (Fiction. 9-12)

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Starred review from April 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-Quirky Star Mackie, who lives in a trailer park and has blue hair, desperately wants to make some friends in her new town. She decides that starting a poetry club is the perfect vehicle. Unfortunately, there aren't many other 10-year-olds as enamored with Emily Dickinson as she is. The only other kids who will join her club are a couple of boys in detention and a brother/sister team. Star has many dreams-she longs to meet her father, hopes her beloved big sister, who is coping with an unexpected pregnancy, will be happy again, and wishes most of all for a true friend. Herrera's first novel is quite accomplished, with plenty of heart and humor, especially apparent in the spelling assignments Star has to complete but refuses to turn in, as she uses them as a sort of journal. Star is a unique, determined, and loving child making the best of a bad situation; readers cannot help but root for her.-B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
Grades 3-6 Star Mackie is a fifth-grader overflowing with hopeespecially for friends. But that seems impossible at her new school since she is teased for living in a pink trailer and having strangely layered blue hair. Her goth sister, Winterher closest allyfuels Star's hope of one day connecting with the father she has yet to meet. Taking a clue from Winter, Star starts a school club in order to make friends, and along the way she develops a fascination with Emily Dickinson's poetry and declares that to be the club's focus. Star does everything she can to make the club work, and, little by little, a small misfit group of students become regulars. When Star learns the shocking truth about her own family, Dickinson's poetry helps her understand her crazy world and accept who she is. In her debut, Herrera has created a delightful narrator with a memorable voice and surrounded her with a unique supporting cast. Got fans of Joan Bauer in your neck of the woods? Send them this way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2014
Ten-year-old Star Mackie enthusiastically founds the Trailer Park Club and even gets a person or two to join. When it fails, she starts a poetry club and discovers Emily Dickinson, whom she decides is like her big sister, who's attending "delinquent school." Herrera gives readers a front-row seat to all the embarrassment and angst of Star's jumbled life--and all of the triumphs

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

May 1, 2014
Ten-year-old Star Mackie has moved with her mother and older sister, Winter, from Oregon to northern California, where things are quite different. For one thing, Star is the only kid in school who lives in a trailer park. Then there's the matter of her hair. While Star prefers to think of it as a "layered cut," her classmates mock her mullet. Nevertheless, Star enthusiastically founds the Trailer Park Club and even gets a person or two to join. When this club fails, she starts a poetry club and discovers Emily Dickinson, whom she decides is a lot like her big sister, who's attending "delinquent school." Trailer parks and good-hearted families in poverty are a familiar trope of contemporary middle-grade fiction, and there's a lot going on here, including some coincidences and a whole lot of Ferris wheel metaphors. But Star's optimism and love for her warts-and-all family shine through, even when things get a bit desperate. First-time author Herrera, telling the story from Star's point of view, gives readers a front-row seat to all the embarrassment and angst of Star's jumbled life -- and all of the triumphs. Here's hoping we hear more from this author. robin l. smith

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)