Ebb & Flow
by Lucy S
Jett is angry. He has just finished a “rotten bad year,” which involved his father being sent to prison and Jett starting a new school in a new town where his one friend is the class bully. To escape the remnants of this rotten time, Jett leaves home to spend the summer with his grandmother, a funny, wise, bright blue-haired, understanding source of relief. In Ebb & Flow, Heather Smith’s middle-grade novel in free verse, Jett and his grandmother trade stories, Jett hesitant at first to spill his secrets. The reason for his father’s imprisonment weighs heavily on Jett, but through the gentle care of his grandmother, Jett is able to return to kindness and head toward forgiveness. Jett comes to realize that it’s possible to love someone without conditions and that his own wrong-doings don’t define him. Using sparse but poetic language, Smith creates realistic, relatable characters who tell an emotional and powerful story.
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