EGGS
by Jerry Spinelli
Little, Brown for Young Readers
Hardcover: 0316166464
Paperback: 9780316166478
Ages 8-12
224 pages

Ten-year-old David recently moved to a new and unfamiliar town to live with his grandmother. His dad also moved to the same house but is hardly ever around; he works two hours away in the big city, coming home only on weekends.

Thirteen-year-old Primrose lives in a tiny house with her fortune-telling mother. She doesn’t know much at all about her absent father. She detests her mom’s unusual personality and puts as much distance as possible between them.

David’s world shattered when a custodian neglected to mark the recently mopped floor as wet. His mother slipped, hit her head and died because someone failed to follow the rules.

Primrose refuses to share the one bedroom and one available bed in their house with her snoring mom. She moves into the junk van left in the yard and works hard to make it her own space, including a paint job and a beanbag chair.

David feels that if he follows enough rules himself, never breaking a single one (except those offered by his grandmother), that somehow his mom will come back to him.

Primrose never had the chance to cuddle up with her mother to listen to bedtime stories or any other normal parent/child bonding custom. She breaks any and every rule she can think of, including slipping out into the night hours to prowl the neighborhood.

These two broken hearts are drawn to each other, and together they form an unusual and unlikely pair. David joins Primrose on her midnight jaunts, sneaking out of his window so as to not wake up his grandmother. Sometimes they visit the 24-hour convenience store or the all-night donut shop. On trash night, they dig through the roadside cans looking for tossed treasures to sell at the local flea market; Primrose needs funds to fix up her van/bedroom. Most of the time they argue and sometimes they share secrets; they even learn how to laugh again. Neither quite understands this relationship, but they do know that they need each other, and they believe that they are all they have to hang on to in this scary world.

Award-winning author Jerry Spinelli has created a masterpiece with EGGS. Tightly woven with profound symbolism, unpredictable humor, heartwrenching pain and picturesque prose, Spinelli is sure to be the recipient of many more awards. People of all ages will enjoy and appreciate this special story.

   --- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

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