Publisher Description

From the acclaimed author of Maybe He Just Likes You and Halfway Normal comes a "compassionate...touching" (Donna Gephart, award-winning author of The Paris Project) and powerful story of learning how to grow, change, and survive.When twelve-year-old Zinnia Manning's older brother Gabriel is diagnosed with a mental illness, the family's world is turned upside down. Mom and Dad want Zinny, her sixteen-year-old sister, Scarlett, and her eight-year-old brother, Aiden, to keep Gabriel's condition "private"--and to Zinny that sounds the same as "secret." Which means she can't talk about it with her two best friends, who don't understand why Zinny keeps pushing them away, turning everything into a joke. It also means she can't talk about it during Lunch Club, a group run by the school guidance counselor. How did Zinny get stuck in this weird club, anyway? She certainly doesn't have anything in common with these kids--and even if she did, she'd never betray her family's secret. The only good thing about school is science class, where cool teacher Ms. Molina has them doing experiments on crayfish. And when Zinny has the chance to attend a dream marine biology camp for the summer, she doesn't know what to do. How can Zinny move forward when Gabriel--and, really, her whole family--still needs her help?

Author Biography

Barbara Dee is the author of fourteen middle grade novels including Unstuck, Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet, Violets Are Blue, My Life in the Fish Tank, Maybe He Just Likes You, Everything I Know About You, Halfway Normal, and Star-Crossed. Her books have earned several starred reviews and have been named to many best-of lists, including The Washington Post's Best Children's Books, the ALA Notable Children's Books, the ALA Rise: A Feminist Book Project List, the NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, and the ALA Rainbow List Top Ten. Barbara lives with her family, including a naughty cat named Luna and a sweet rescue hound named Ripley, in Westchester County, New York.

Excerpt from Book

1. February 21 February 21 James Ramos got a haircut yesterday, but so what. I mean, nothing against his hair: he had a perfectly regular-shaped head and un-clownish ears. And now you could see his eyes (brown), if that was super important to you. But not to me. Unlike my two best friends, Kailani and Maisie, and probably a whole bunch of other girls in the seventh grade, I wasn't obsessed with James Ramos, or with his hair. So while we walked to school that morning, and Kailani went on and on about James Ramos And His Haircut, I tried to click on a different mental link. Think about other stuff, I told myself. The crayfish we're getting in science lab. The fish tanks we're designing. All the cool experiments we'll be doing-- Now Maisie tugged my jacket sleeve. "Don't you think, Zinny?" she was asking. "About what, specifically?" I glanced at Kailani, hoping for a clue. "That James likes Kailani! That he has a crush!" "Oh, definitely," I said. "Zinny." In the chilly air, Maisie's skin was pale, and her freckles stood out like punctuation marks. "No offense, but you're doing that thing again." "What thing?" "You know," Kailani said gently. "Tuning us out. Pretending we're not here." "That's not true," I protested. "I mean, okay, sometimes my mind wanders a little--" Maisie snorted. "Can I ask you something, Zinny? Why are you walking with us if you don't want to be with us?" I couldn't answer that question. Even though the words were all in my head: But I do want to be with you. To be honest, with all the stuff going on in my family, if I didn't have the two of you, I couldn't go to school at all.

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