Gary D. Schmidt, two-time Newbery Honor winner (Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy; The Wednesday Wars), tells the terrific, gut-punching story of a 14-year-old boy who is the father of a child he's never seen... a baby named Jupiter.
Teenager Joseph Brook is delivered by the State of Maine to the Hurds' farm under strained circumstances. The social worker warns the Hurds that Joseph won't be touched, won't eat canned peaches and, by the way, has a baby somewhere, but the eager foster family is undaunted. Twelve-year-old Jack Hurd knows Joseph is an okay guy when the family cow, Rosie, takes a liking to him: "You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him," says Jack. Orbiting Jupiter grabs readers by the collar right away, with Jack's direct, plainspoken voice that bursts with heart. Joseph, withdrawn at first, warms up to the family in time, but he's haunted by his past. At night he cries out the name of his true love and baby's mother, Maddie. And one moonlit night, sitting around the fire with Jack and his parents, Joseph says, "I have to see Jupiter. Will you help me?" The odds are stacked against Joseph ever reuniting with his child, and his sinister, abusive biological father isn't helping matters.
To the bitter end, the Hurds remain as comfortingly steadfast and true as "the smell of hay and old wood and leather and cow" of their barn. Love doesn't conquer all in this spare, masterful novel, but it's a force to be reckoned with. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness