In 2022, I read and reviewed Lisa Fipps’ award-winning first book, Starfish, a fat-positive middle-grade novel-in-verse, so I was happy to find out that she published a second middle-grade novel-in-verse in 2024, And Then, BOOM!
And Then, BOOM! tells the story of Joe Oak, a tween who lives with his grandmother, because his Mom often gets “The Itch” and runs off to who knows where. His Grandmum is still working, cleaning houses, but they lose their own house and live in their car for a while, then luck into a mobile home park run by a very kindly man, Uncle Frank. But Grandmum is sick, and one day Joe comes home from school to find his Mom back, and Grandmum gone–she had a stomach aneurysm and died at the hospital.
The title comes from the idea that things can be holding together for a while–they have food, a place to live, a car to get around in, and then BOOM! something happens and they are homeless and hungry again. Joe has to deal with way more than any child should have to, but luckily he has friends who he doesn’t have to tell what’s going on–they figure it out, and he meets people like Uncle Frank, and special teachers, who help him.
But then his Mom takes off and he’s on his own, with no way to earn money or way to get food. He hasn’t heard anything good about foster care, so he wants to avoid it. Even though he’s always hungry himself, when he finds an abandoned Momma dog and puppies, he has to bring them back to the trailer and take care of them.
But when a tornado comes, and Joe barely survives, he knows that the time has come to tell the truth and ask for help.
I highly recommend it–it’s a very quick read, and would be excellent to read with kids to understand the perspective of someone in Joe’s situation. And it was completely weight-neutral, as I would expect. I’m looking forward to many more stories from Lisa Fipps!
Reading While Fat 