All Alone in the Universe

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Description

"Before last summer Maureen and I were best friends....At least I think we were. I don't know what happened exactly. As some people who get hit by trucks sometimes say,'I didn't see anything coming.'"

When her best friend since the third grade starts acting as though Debbie doesn't exist, Debbie finds out the hard way that life can be a lonesome place. But in the end the heroine of this wryly funny coming-of-age story--a girl who lives in a house covered with stuff that is supposed to look like bricks but is just a fake brick pattern--discovers that even the hourly tragedies of junior high school can have silver linings, just as a house covered with Insul-Brick can protect a real home. This first novel shines--fun, engrossing, bittersweet, and wonderfully unpredictable.

Reviews

"An exceptional first novel. You feel at heart that this is a story of an artist being born."-- "The Horn Book""A poignant story written with sensitivity and tenderness."-- "School Library Journal"Debbie's first-person narrative is sharp, funny, uneasy, spiteful, fragile."-- "ALA Booklist"

Author Bio

Lynne Rae Perkins was awarded the Newbery Medal for Criss Cross. She is the author of one other book for teensAll Alone in the Universe, a companion to Criss Cross. Lynne Rae Perkins has also written and illustrated several picture books, including Snow Music, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and a Book Sense Top Ten Pick. "Perkins is a genius at capturing the odd details that reveal so much about individuals and families, and how they interact," said Riverbank Review about her picture book The Broken Cat. The author lives with her family in northern Michigan.