*Starred Review* Masterful is the word to describe Schmidt's latest, the deeply moving story of a 14-year-old boy who is an out-of-wedlock father with one desire: to see his baby daughter, though laws and rules and regulations militate against this. The boy, Joseph, has a checkered past: he once took some pills he shouldn't have and subsequently tried to kill a teacher. Accordingly, he has spent time in a correctional facility where he has been savagely beaten and abused. Despite this or perhaps because of it 12-year-old Jack's parents bring Joseph to live with them on their New England farm, and just like that, Jack has a foster brother. Joseph's adjustment to a new life isn't always an easy one; his emotions are locked up, he encounters bullies, and many of his teachers are suspicious of him. Through all of it, Joseph never abandons his dream of seeing his daughter, named Jupiter for his and the mother's favorite planet. Told in Jack's spare, direct first-person voice, the story's style demonstrates the beauty of simplicity as it delineates the lives of its characters, each as superbly realized as the tumultuous New England setting. An altogether memorable novel from the ever incredible Schmidt. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: From Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004) to The Wednesday Wars (2007) to Okay for Now (2011), Schmidt rarely disappoints and this one is a highlight.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2015 Booklist

Joseph Brook, 14, has been dealt a hand so bad that he deserves to win the foster family lottery, which he does, delivered into the care of the Hurds-loving, patient, thoughtful farmers. He arrives nearly mute, his social worker warning that, because of what he's been through in detention, he doesn't like the color orange, to be touched, or to be approached from behind. But Joseph thaws quickly, bonding with narrator, Jack, the last foster child the Hurds took in. Within weeks, Joseph shares his tragic history: he fell in love with a well-to-do girl, and she became pregnant at 13. The baby, Jupiter, is now in foster care, too, and Joseph desperately wants to find her. The plot can be heavy-handed, but Schmidt's writing is so smooth and graceful that is easy to empathize with Joseph, who is victimized repeatedly-by his father, by adults who write him off before they meet him, by bullies who see an easy target. It's a powerful story about second chances, all the more devastating because not everyone gets one. Ages 10-14. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Jackson Hurd's family has taken in a new foster child, and Jackson will have to find the meanings of love and loyalty as he befriends his foster brother. Joseph Brook looks like an average eighth-grader at Eastham Middle School, but he's not. He became a father at age 13, spent time in juvie, and has an abusive father. Living with Jack's family on their Maine farm could mean a normal life for him, but he is obsessed with finding Jupiter, the daughter he's not allowed to see. He finds love within Jack's family and support from some teachers at schoolincluding Coach Swieteck, whom some readers might remember from Okay for Now (2011)who appreciate his skills in math and gymnastics, but one teacher warns Jack of Joseph's bad influence, and other students call Joseph "Psycho." Schmidt writes with an elegant simplicity in this paean to the power of love. But there's a snake in the gardenJoseph's fatherand it is the uncoiling of fate, rooted in the tale from the beginning, that leads to the novel's devastating conclusion.Readers will not soon forget either Joseph Brook or this spare novel written with love and grace. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

jack gantos and his publisher encourage you to think of "The Trouble in Me" as a prequel to his celebrated memoir "Hole in My Life" - and I encourage you to ignore them. The books are so different in tone, in what they strive for and what they achieve, that they could meet at a party, get drunk and go home together without ever knowing that they're cousins. Instead, let's consider Gantos's novel as spiritual kin to another new Y.A. novel from a highly decorated pro: Gary D. Schmidt's "Orbiting Jupiter." Here are two books about the perilous moment in a boy's life when he is so desperate to define himself - so open to influence - that just getting to know a troubled older kid is like walking into a storm. "The Trouble in Me" is a comic cautionary tale set in Fort Lauderdale in 1964, and concerns the darkening friendship between the author's fictionalized 14-year-old alter ego and his new neighbor, a violent delinquent named Gary Pagoda. At the outset, lazy, daydreamy Jack empties a can of lighter fluid onto the grill for his dad's surprise party and unleashes an "Old Testament fireball." It's a funny, raucous sequence, even if it's dampened by the author's insistence that we understand the symbolism - this is a baptism by fire, and young Jack will never be the same - and by a traffic jam of images: "The thrusting flames stood out like blood-red bayonets of molten steel. ... Staring into them set the canyons of my mind on fire and charred the weedy debris of dead thoughts." Gary Pagoda, who's been relieving himself in a nearby canal, thinks Jack's fireball is hysterical. For the rest of this slender novel, he draws Jack into increasingly dangerous stunts and, ultimately, into a misguided "Endless Love"-style quest to win back his own girlfriend. Jack is utterly devoted, though Gary is cold and cruel and slaps him just for asking questions. What Gantos is attempting here is to explain how he turned into the 19-year-old from "Hole in My Life" - a guy so suggestible that he helped crew a boat full of drugs and sailed himself directly into prison. But "Hole in My Life" was a sobering memoir with the full weight of truth. "The Trouble in Me" is an often giddy entertainment, and the humor can feel queasily at odds with the subject matter. Still, the book has an unsettling power. You have to admire what a gutsy hybrid the author is aiming for: a cautionary romp about a kid who signs his life over to a sociopath. Schmidt's "Orbiting Jupiter" is warmer and more reassuring, though it has its share of tragedy. Our narrator is a 12-year-old Maine farm boy also named Jack, as it happens. And this Jack also befriends an angry outsider: his new foster brother, Joseph, who shows signs of physical and emotional abuse. Early on - when Joseph storms off the school bus and walks in the subfreezing cold because the driver is being nosy - Jack gets off, too, in solidarity. So immediately we know that Jack is equipped with a shining heart and that far from being led astray, he will try to help his wounded friend heal. Joseph has much to heal from: Though he's only 13, he has a daughter somewhere, a girl named Jupiter he has never been allowed to see. He frequently scans the sky for the planet she is named after because that's as close as he may ever get. Schmidt is best known for historical Y.A., like the Vietnam-era Long Island of "The Wednesday Wars." "Orbiting Jupiter" is set today, though it might as well be another century, because no one seems ever to have plugged anything into anything else. The timelessness of the book can feel implausible, even for rural Maine. Still, like Gantos, Schmidt has the courage of his convictions. He has written a novel about pain and bonding - a spare book scrubbed clean of 21st-century distractions. And he smuggles in some poetry as Jack joins Joseph on his quest for closure: "It stayed cold that Monday, and... there were snowflakes in the air that afternoon again, drifting like they didn't care if they landed." "The Trouble in Me" and "Orbiting Jupiter" are about boys who get blown through the air themselves. The suspense in reading, as in life, is in wondering if they will land safely - or at all. JEFF GILES is a former deputy editor of Entertainment Weekly. His first Y.A. novel will be published in 2017.

Gr 7 Up-Fourteen-year-old Joseph comes to the Hurd family after being incarcerated for almost killing a teacher. He was raised by his violent father, and the simple farm life of his new foster family is in stark contrast to the unstable life he has always known. While his new home should be a welcome break from the chaos, Joseph is restless, his thoughts consumed by the infant daughter he has never met. Jack, Joseph's younger foster brother, shows enormous compassion and patience, counting Joseph's "almost" smiles as small signs of hope that he is beginning to heal and possibly even trust Jack. One might expect Jack to have feelings of resentment at having such a troubled young man disrupt his ideal family life, but instead Jack is supportive from the very beginning. The issues and emotions surrounding Joseph's struggles are difficult and complex, especially for one still in middle school, yet handled with such simplicity and grace that listeners will be left convinced that everyone deserves a second chance. Christopher Gebauer skillfully narrates a story in which the characters' few words are packed with meaning and emotion. VERDICT Recommended for libraries where realistic fiction circulates well. ["The matter-of-fact narrative voice ensures that the tragic plot never overwhelms this wrenching tale of growth and loss": SLJ 8/15 starred review of the Clarion book.]-Theresa Horn, St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Schmidt's novel revolves around the hard-won friendship between narrator Jack, a mild-mannered sixth grader who lives with his parents on a farm in Maine, and his troubled fourteen-year-old foster brother, Joseph, previously incarcerated for attacking a teacher and who, at age thirteen, fathered a baby. The youthfulness of Gebauer's voice suits Jack but also bends to capture the laconic, withholding Joseph. Gebauer, too, shows his agility when voicing the novel's adults, many of whom aren't as saintly as Jack's parents. He may adjust his cadence and lower his voice a bit, but he never makes the rookie mistake of signaling to the reader what he thinks of a character. nell beram (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.