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As the mother of one child with brain cancer and another with ADHD, Shannon Stocker is passionate about advocating for children with disabilities. She’s authored the Crystal Kite Award-winning YA novel Stronger at the Seams, as well as picture books such as the ALA Schneider Family Book Award-winner Listen: How Evelyn Glennie, a Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion and Warrior: A Patient’s Courageous Quest, among others. Shannon lives in Louisville, KY with her husband Greg, her children Cassidy and Tye, and way too many critters.
Shannon Stocker. Blink, $18.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-310-16235-3 Fourteen-year-old Twyla Vogel thinks that helping her Louisville, Ky., high school's field hockey team win games should be her only concern. Instead, she's preoccupied with how sick she feels; dealing with frequent nausea and declining appetite during games, sleepovers, or school dances has taken its toll. Worse, her two best friends are spending more time together without her, a teammate seems determined to undermine her at every opportunity, and she's developed confusing feelings for her childhood friend Elliot. Following a discouraging doctor's visit during which she's diagnosed with constipation, Twyla searches for answers herself. Spurred by her recent studies in AP biology, Twyla wonders if her illness could be linked to her late mother's genetics. Twyla's accessible narration depicts her tumultuous situations: her physical struggles, her distant relationship with her father, grief over her mother's death five years earlier, her changing friendships. Based on the author's family experiences, as discussed in an endnote by Stocker (Listen: How Evelyn Glennie, a Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion), it's a compassionate interpretation of one teen's difficulties navigating health concerns and medical advocacy. Most characters cue as white. Ages 13--up. Agent: Allison Remcheck, Stimola Literary. (Oct.) * Publishers Weekly *
