Trowbridge Road

Name: Trowbridge Road
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Marcella Pixley
ISBN: 9781799767947

Author: Marcella Pixley

Narrator: Tara Sands

Unabridged: 6 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Candlewick on Brilliance Audio

Published: 10/06/2020

Categories: Children's Fiction, Children's Social Themes

Synopsis

In a stunning novel set in the 1980s, a girl with heavy secrets awakens her sleepy street to the complexities of love and courage.It’s the summer of ’83 on Trowbridge Road, and June Bug Jordan is hungry. Months after her father’s death from complications from AIDS, her mother has stopped cooking and refuses to leave the house, instead locking herself away to scour at the germs she believes are everywhere. June Bug threatens this precarious existence by going out into the neighborhood, gradually befriending Ziggy, an imaginative boy who is living with his Nana Jean after experiencing troubles of his own. But as June Bug’s connection to the world grows stronger, her mother’s grows more distant — even dangerous — pushing June Bug to choose between truth and healing and the only home she has ever known. Trowbridge Road paints an unwavering portrait of a girl and her family touched by mental illness and grief. Set in the Boston suburbs during the first years of the AIDS epidemic, the novel explores how a seemingly perfect neighborhood can contain restless ghosts and unspoken secrets. Written with deep insight and subtle lyricism by acclaimed author Marcella Pixley, Trowbridge Road demonstrates our power to rescue one another even when our hearts are broken.

About Marcella Pixley

Marcella Pixley is the author of three highly acclaimed books for young adults, including Ready to Fall, which was a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. She teaches writing to middle schoolers in Massachusetts, where she lives with her family.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Darla on October 07, 2020

June Bug has a backpack filled with all the utensils and other supplies she needs to be clean enough to go back in her house. Her life is a never ending routine of cleaning and disinfecting -- to the point that she has burn marks from sitting in scalding bleach baths. It is 1983 and June's father is......more

Goodreads review by Wendi on March 05, 2020

This is a middle grade book with a lot of heavy material. The middle grade genre is known for tackling hard issues (one of the reasons I love MG), but this one is unusually top heavy with trauma. It's 1983, and June is trying to survive life with her mother. Her father was recently died, and June's......more

Goodreads review by Debbie on March 25, 2020

A beautifully written and ultimately hopeful book, though at times deeply sad, this novel demonstrates the way that life can be redeemed by friendships and found family. June Bug's father has died of AIDS, and her mother is sunk in grief. June is hungry all the time. Then one day a boy, who has prob......more

Goodreads review by Vighnesh on September 29, 2020

Thank you Pansing and Definitely Books for sending me a review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. I was surprised by how much I loved this novel. I felt so seen and I related to a lot of things that our main character, June has to go through and how she copes with it. It was tough a......more

Goodreads review by Karly-Lynne (storybookcook) on September 28, 2020

This upper middle grade novel is a beautiful, heartbreaking yet hopeful story about parental mental illness, childhood trauma, and kinship care. Pixley represents the experience of child neglect with such honesty and empathy and she tells the story of two imaginative, resilient children, June Bug J......more

Quotes

"Characters are memorably portrayed by [Tara] Sands, with Nana Jean's compassionate warmth being the standout.… Sands emotively describes the beauty of nature, simple meals, and June's life with her agoraphobic mother…." —AudioFile Magazine“June Bug narrates this work of historical realism with a magical, poetic quality, turning the ordinary extraordinary. June Bug and Ziggy’s fanciful adventures are likely to resonate with fans of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia (1977)...An exceptional story for readers who feel deeply.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Drawing comparisons to Bridge to Terabithia, this literary middle grade novel by Pixley (Ready to Fall) follows two lonely children awash in secrets and hurts...Heartbreaking and sometimes emotionally difficult, this novel will appeal to young teens looking for something serious to dig into.”—Publishers Weekly