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Nov 12, 2018IndyPL_SteveB rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Exciting novel about new friendship between three children with few connections between them. Winner of the 2018 John Newbery Medal. Extremely shy 7th-grader-to-be Virgil Salinas would like to meet hearing-disabled 7th-grader-to-be Valencia Somerset, whom he has seen every day in school. They are each isolated in their own way but don’t know how to break out. Both are being harassed by Chet, a bully in their grade. In hope of getting a new perspective, Virgil and Valencia separately decide to visit another middle school student, Kaori Tanaka, who is trying to be a fortune teller, in hopes of getting a new perspective. However, when Virgil is walking through the woods to get to Kaori’s house, Chet throws Virgil’s backpack down a dry well. Since the backpack contains Virgil’s pet guinea pig, he climbs into the well and gets trapped, comforted only slightly by his memories of his grandmother’s heroic stories of Filipino folklore. The excellent characters, even the bully, are what make the story work.