Shortlisted for the UKLA 2017 Book Award Before meeting his new foster brother, Jack understands what he and his family are ‘getting into’. Fourteen-year-old Joseph almost killed a teacher, and he has a three-month-old daughter, Jupiter, whom he’s never seen. But from the outset, when Joseph storms off the school bus and Jack joins him on the freezing two mile walk, we know he’s found a friend and ally. We know Jack ‘has his back’.
At first Joseph won’t be touched, barely speaks and is nervous of milking the cows on Jack’s farm but, as Jack comments, “you can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him”, and the cows love Joseph. Slowly-slowly, Joseph opens up and begins to smile - Jack counts each one of them – but he’s haunted by memories of the girl he loved, Jupiter’s mother, and by her tragic death. Joseph can’t get Jupiter out of his mind either, and so his nightly sky-search for her planetary namesake becomes a heartrending real-world search; he has to find his baby daughter.
While further loss lies ahead, this is, ultimately, a remarkable read-in-one-sitting story of friendship, love and the glow of hope that comes from second chances and new life. Joseph’s tragic tale will break your heart, but the tenderness that flows from this flawlessly compact novel will also piece it back together. ~ Joanne Owen
The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine.
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The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Orbiting Jupiter and determined it is suitable for children aged 13-18 years old
Orbiting Jupiter features in the following genres: Featured Books for Young Adults, Recommendations, Stories about Family and Friends, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, PSHE: Family Issues, Personal Social Health Economic (PSHE), PSHE: Bereavement and Grief, PSHE: Bullying and Discrimination, Recommended Children's eBooks, Featured Books for 13+ readers, Gritty Reads
Paperback, Hardback, Ebook. Not Available.
Orbiting Jupiter was written by Gary D. Schmidt and published by Clarion Books an imprint of HMH Books
Orbiting Jupiter has 192 pages
