Once in a blue moon

Review by Booklist Review

Eleven-year-old twins James Henry and Hattie Mae live with their grandmother in North Carolina while their father earns money in Detroit to pay Ma's medical bills. James Henry hasn't left home since a mysterious accident traumatized him and left his mother hospitalized with unspecified injuries. Hattie Mae supports her twin against local bullies and tries to encourage him to confront his mental paralysis during a blue moon. In their story that's told in verse and set during the Jim Crow era, these African American twins are well aware of the rigid rules society dictates for them and the severe penalties for disobedience. The protagonists are well developed (James Henry has a passion for astronomy, Hattie Mae for her pet birds), and the support they receive from family is heartwarming; secondary characters--including the dentist's daughter, Lottie Jean (who has her own missing-mother issues), and the Baker brothers (most of whom are bullies)--are also multidimensional. An arduous journey to the beach where the accident occurred proves eventful and life changing, providing closure and a path forward.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Twins deal with the fallout of their mother's hospitalization in this emotionally raw verse novel by Flake (The Skin I'm In), set in Jim Crow--era North Carolina. After their mother nearly drowns, she's sent to a Detroit hospital, leaving 11-year-old Black twins James Henry and Hattie Mae in the care of Gran and Uncle. Only James Henry knows what really happened the night she almost died, but his anxiety, fear, and guilt result in him feeling unable to speak to anyone except Gran and Hattie Mae, prompting suspicion and blame from Uncle and other townspeople. James Henry even refuses to leave the house, creating a rift between the siblings. He finds refuge in astronomy, only going outside to survey the moon. When Hattie Mae learns that a rare blue moon--or a wishing moon, according to Gran--will soon be visible, she's sure that if they can get to the ocean, James Henry could wish away "his condition," as he calls it. But she must persuade him to leave the house first. Brief but impactful poems narrated by perceptive James Henry deliver a poignantly compelling intergenerational story that underlines themes of community and family, forgiveness, grief, and healing. An author's note concludes. Ages 8--12. Agent: Jennifer Lyons, Jennifer Lyons Literary. (July)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Horn Book Review

In sparkling free verse, Flake delivers a rich and compassionate story of family love centered on forgiveness. Eleven-year-old James Henry and his twin sister, Hattie Mae, live with their grandmother in North Carolina, in the Jim Crow South. After a traumatic incident involving their mother and a beloved stray dog, James Henry becomes reclusive, never leaving the house or communicating with anyone except Grand and his sister. Shouldering tremendous guilt, James Henry, an astronomy buff, copes by pretending to fly to outer space with his steadfast companion and constant protector, Hattie Mae. But when she makes a new friend, his troubles become more complicated as now he has to compete for his twin's attention. He knows the only solution to his problems is to confront his anxieties. His first steps out of the house turn into an adventurous odyssey under the luminous guidance of a mystical blue moon that Grand calls a "wishing moon." "What you want for, wish for / or need / on that day is yours / according to her." An evocative, immediate novel with compelling characters and a wonderfully well-paced plot. (c) Copyright 2024. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

After Ma nearly drowns one fateful night, a North Carolina boy doesn't go outside. Everything 11-year-old James Henry needs to do, including taking imaginary trips into the night skies with twin sister Hattie, he can do at home. He endures the stares and gossip of folks as they pass his house. Nobody but he knows what happened that night, but as long as he has the safety of home, as long as nobody touches him, and as long as he can avoid his own guilt, he's fine. But Hattie is done with James Henry's being "just fine." A rare blue moon is coming, and she thinks that it's time for him to go out and meet it. Everyone knows that things can change and worlds can shift under the blue moon. Using short poems, the tale takes readers on a soul-twisting journey once James Henry, a Black boy living during Jim Crow, leaves home with his sister and her friend Lottie Jean. Together they face off against racists and bullies. Readers also get joyous representations of Black children thriving in the outdoors: swimming, eating well, and using knowledge passed down to them to move forward. This is when these characters start to take full form, but it's interrupted by the mystery of what really happened to James Henry's Ma, something that haunts the storyline in confusing and distracting ways. The theme of recovery after deep trauma shines brightly. (author's note) (Verse historical fiction. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Me People ask about the boy behind the door inside the house me. Mostly Sister gets the questions. She chases away boys girls too sometimes who wander onto our property to gawk and stare at me the one folks hardly see but everybody knows about. Me and Sister Hattie and me are twins not that we match exactly. She's two inches taller I'm two minutes older a boy. Eleven though I seem younger. Maybe that's why Hattie likes to boss me around. But I'm the captain today anyhow. Which means she's got to follow my rules. My Condition Sometimes I feel as small as a flea as little as the space between the numbers on a watch. It makes living hard staying inside easier than leaving the house. Right now I'm on my knees on the couch by the window staring out--­like usual. Hattie's to the right of the porch next to the gravel walkway in front of the bushes Gran asked her to trim yesterday. It's a boy's job my job but given my condition Hattie gets to take my place more than I'd like not that I like toting pails feeding chickens milking. The Way Things Are We live in Seed County, North Carolina. Daddy is in Detroit working. Here, it's me Gran and Hattie in the house. Uncle comes by now and again. He don't like me much. Hattie's Way How many times you got to call a girl before she answers? One time? Two times? Ten? "Hattie Mae!" I say again. Outside past the porch she squats low picks up a rope that came from Detroit wrapped around a box of new dresses sent to her by Daddy. She holds both ends swings that rope over her head jumps HIGH sends dirt flying. Still she ignores me. Could be she's mad at me. This is the third time this week I said I'd go outside try to anyhow. Only I can't. Sister's Song Sister is dressed for Sunday when it's only Wednesday. She sings while she jumps hops skips. "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack . . ." But as soon as her song starts it stops. "Everybody's got a condition," she says. "Pastor wheezes when he preaches. Sneezes come spring. Still he gets out the house." I get out at night, at least. If folks looked up, there I'd be on the roof under the sky talking to Hattie the only one allowed up there besides me. My rules even when I'm not the captain. Lighthouses and Blue Moons Sister takes her sweet time walking up the pine front-­porch steps sawed and nailed in place by Granddad, who built the house. Halfway between the porch and me she stops gives Gran a hug reminds her that there'll be a blue moon in a few months' time. Who don't know that? The almanac calls the second full moon in a month a blue moon. It don't happen too often. Which makes it a big deal important unusual. Gran calls it a wishing moon. What you want for, wish for or need on that day is yours according to her. Which is why Hattie is nagging me so. If I'm to be rid of my condition she believes we need to get to the ocean on the night of the blue moon get to the lighthouse too where I was when everything changed. Which means I have to get out of this house first. Only I can't. Why don't folks understand that? Ma would. Hattie in the House Hattie comes inside when I say I don't feel so well. Sister swears it's nothing. Just me worrying or about to. Still she puts her hand on my forehead. Feels like something. Needles poke my legs. Fire burns my toes and fingernails. My insides hum like guitar strings just plucked. It's my nerves playing tricks on me Doc Edwards claimed during his once-­a-­month visit. Feels like something worse. "Hattie," Gran says from where she sits rocking on the porch, "leave him be." Hattie stands behind me. Hugs me. Brings up Doc Edwards. I shiver get cold to the bone. My worrying is a worry to my soul brain blood and everything that makes me me Doc Edwards said before he left town for good. "Get him outside in the sun. Drag him if you must," he told Daddy not long after the accident plus a few more times besides. Daddy never did. Never would. He understands me good as Ma. Ma's Twin Uncle said it was a fool's errand that sent me to the ocean that night with Ma chasing after me. More About Uncle Uncle never did trust up-­north big-­city fast-­talking pointy-­toed-­shoe-­wearing folk  Negro or white not even Daddy at first. Till Ma introduced him to Daddy's cousin Sarah. She's our cousin and our aunt now. They married ten years ago. Got no kids just each other plus a big white house. Uncle came back south when Gran got sick. Ma followed. For just a spell they both said. Then he got a job with the railroad. Ma started teaching. Six-­two pecan brown Uncle dresses in clothes plain as paper bags. Brown brown always brown. His car is fancy, though. His house has three floors. He built it himself. Some nights I stayed with them. He liked me then. Ma If it wasn't for Ma I would believe what people say about me that I'm peculiar  odd a coward. That night Ma called me brave  strong her little man the smartest boy in Seed County. I never told anybody that. Rooftop On my back on top the roof laying on a blanket with my toes aimed at the sky I forget my troubles. The moon lights up the night. Lights me up inside fills me up calms me down. Hattie too. Sister is nearby with her birds. Standing in front of cages stacked wide and high Hattie looks after her treasures doves that think they're hawks. Twelve in all. Only Nutcracker is free right now. Above My Head Nutcracker flaps his wings heads for his favorite spot a chicken-­wire fence Daddy put around the roof so we don't fall off. Hattie sets another dove free then another till there's ten of us on the roof one complaining--­ me. The others coo peck at seeds corn kernels dry peas that Hattie scatters in the cages on the roof and me. I close my eyes again think about Buck Rogers who is nothing like me. Full-­grown white he lives in the twenty-­fifth century five hundred years in the future. Ray guns. Starships. High-­frequency impulses. I never heard of such things before his radio show. Uncle doesn't like it one bit. Says Buck and me do the devil's work by meditating on places God never wanted folk to go Venus Neptune Pluto the Milky Way the moon. When I think on them and other things above I don't fear anything. Night Trains The train runs along the track behind our house. Black spitting steam it heads this way on its way to the station. Hattie's birds squawk and swoop. I pretend I'm in first class on my way to Sirius. Captain Me Hattie sits beside me in a rain barrel I sawed in half. I check the controls--­ buttons and knobs whittled out of wood hammered and nailed into place with my very own hands. Sister shifts gears using an old ax handle she swings in the air. "Ready?" I ask. Sister salutes. "Aye, aye, Captain." "Head protector?" I ask. She pats her helmet Gran's old church hat covered in tinfoil. "Check," she says. "Rocket fuel?" Sister lifts a seltzer bottle full of well water. "Enough for a month, sir." "Jet pack?" "Yes sir." We got suspenders strapped on our backs stitched to feed sacks filled with dried peas handmade by Gran. Hattie Mae licks her baby finger. Holds it high. "Good news, James Henry. Yesterday's storm did not excite the wind too much. We should make it to Neptune in record time without being blown off course." I bolt the cabin door shut. "Ready?" "Set," Hattie says. "Blast off!" we scream. The train rolls by. Houses rumble and shake including ours. Smoke from the engine nearly blinds us. Still I see coloreds and whites on different planets. Neptune not that far away. To Outer Space and Beyond "Space rocks!" Hattie Mae hollers at the top of her lungs. Her birds know their parts. Most times they stay in their cages but before we got started she set 'em free eight of 'em anyhow. Pullman circles the roof-- Squawk!-- dives down grabs buttons with his claws drops 'em on us. Aberdeen named after Ma goes for the acorns. Other birds pick up sticks just like Sister trained 'em. Our anti-­radiation tinfoil hats get hit from every which direction. It doesn't hurt us any. It's our rocket ship that's damaged. The engine cuts off. "Sssssssss," Sister says. The cabin light follows. Birds go back in their cages. In the dark without power we drift off course--­like Buck Rogers. Down down down our spaceship goes till we're in a part of the universe we never saw before. Sister pulls out a flashlight.  The head is covered with cheesecloth. Light rays shoot from it like sun through fog. "It's . . . so empty out here. Quiet," I say. Sister screams, "Aliens!" I zap their tentacles with cow's milk. Point to our instruments spinning out of control. Hattie grabs her throat. Coughs. "We're losing oxygen. . . . I . . . I'm dying . . . James Henry." She faints the way them movie stars do at the picture show flopping over the side of the rocket ship eyes crossed. I stand up. "I . . . won't . . . fail . . . you . . . Sister!" "Oh goodness," I hear Gran say from inside the house. "The whole dang town can hear ya." With all my strength I give the instruments a good hard kick. Hattie comes to. "Thank goodness." Sits up claps. A few hundred million miles later we're floating through space in peace. Captains Ain't Afraid I shut down the engine. "Have you ever seen anything like it, Hattie?" "Not in all my born days." I unbuckle my belt decompress the hatch like Buck. Open the door. Check my oxygen levels. Take off my helmet and breathe. Space air smells sweeter than earth air. More like them green-­apple pies Gran bakes and wins prizes for. "Up here we can drink from any fountain. Sit in any seat we want." Hattie nods, then follows me out. "When we meet those space people don't be scared, you hear?" she says. I beat my chest. "I'm the captain. And captains ain't afraid of nothing." Hattie floats past me because there's no gravity in space. Tiptoeing behind birdcages, we search for stuff we came with earlier chicken feet tree bark rabbit teeth eggshells stomped to pieces. Things we astronauts call by other names meteorites space dust moon rocks. "Space critters sure are messy," Sister says. Kneeling she picks up pine needles drops 'em into medicine bottles calls 'em alien bones. The sound of Gran's bell a cooking pot she hits with a wooden spoon finds us way up here in outer space. "Suppertime! Y'all come," she says. We keep exploring filling our helmets with our finds lose track of time until I hear something. "Squeak." I freeze. Seems like my heart stops too. Hattie Mae swallows. "It's nothing." It's them and she knows it. Sister keeps to her space job collecting marbles we plan to trade with space pirates in case we need to bargain for our lives. "Squeak." My fingers find my mouth. I chew my nails. Between bites, I ask if she heard what I heard. Sister lies. "No." "You had to, Hattie. I know it." I back up find the darkest part of the roof the space between the cages and the fence. Squatting I squeeze my eyes tight. "Squeak." "Squeak." "James Henry. We know you up there. You coward." The Baker Brothers "Titus Baker, take this." "Ouch!" Sister pitches coals over the chicken-­wire fence like baseballs. Her aim is always perfect. Titus Baker finds that out soon enough. "Hattie Mae," he shouts up to us. "Your brother's got it coming, and you know it!" I try to keep myself calm. But my mind ignores me like always. Run. Go in the house. Hide under the kitchen table. My forehead gets wet as water. Drips sweat. I rub my eyes but cannot wipe my thoughts clean. So I take off running. Pecans fly over the chicken wire like bullets hit my chest sting my neck chase Hattie's birds rattle the rest still in cages. I go back to where I was. Hattie follows. Crouching low beside me Sister reminds me that there's a blue moon coming and when a blue moon shows up everything is set right again. "Everything?" My hands tremble like collards in a December wind. "Even me?" I think of myself the way I used to be. Brave. "Even you, James Henry. Which is why tomorrow you have to start practicing getting out the house and used to the world again." I want to agree but my thoughts won't go along. They ruminate pester worry me. What if she's wrong? What if I make it to the ocean and drown once and for all this time? The Baker Brothers Plus One "James Henry!" The Baker brothers live up the road a piece. Their father's cow always breaks free finds its way to our house. The brothers--­five of them--­are mean as ground hornets. "Want to go swimming?" Titus shouts. He's the eldest Baker boy. "Don't let me come down there," says Hattie. Them Bakers standing with their cousin Red bring up other things that scare me fire crowds leaving home folks touching me all except Hattie, Gran, or Daddy. "Sister, you won't let 'em get up here, will you?" I ask. "No, Brother. I won't." "Gran won't either, will she?" "Never, James Henry." "And if they come they won't find me, right?" "They won't get past me, James Henry. I'll always protect you. You and me twins." "But what if there's lots of 'em sometime? A whole crowd of 'em. A town's worth of kids trying to get to me. Then what?" "They know, James Henry, that I can whip the whole lot of them, if I must. We've been on the moon, haven't we? To Ursa Major and back. Me and you can do anything." "Anything." "Yeah, twins are like that." I get on my knees. Breathe in slow and easy. Remind myself that long as Hattie is with me, nothing bad can truly happen. But then I smell it. SMOKE. Sister Saves Me, Again Hattie tells me to stay put Not to look. Not to think what she already knows I'm thinking. What if the house burns down? What if Gran can't get out? What if we're trapped up here? What help would I be? I couldn't even save Ma or Dog. Just stood there. Not even Hattie knows the whole story. More smoke floats up to our planet. I cover my nose and mouth. Hattie calls for two birds Wilma named after Buck Rogers's assistant and Pullman named for the dignified hardworking sleeping-car porters who formed their very own union. "Get 'em!" she shouts. Hattie ain't the captain. I am. Sometimes she forgets that. Like now when she jumps over the chicken-­wire fence leaps to the ground with her arms wide as dragon wings. I run to the chicken wire cheering. The Bakers and their cousin Red run too up the road in every which direction. Anybody would, with Hattie and her birds chasing 'em. Excerpted from Once in a Blue Moon by Sharon G. Flake All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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