The Season of Styx Malone

June 1, 2018

Gr 4-7-Summertime in small-town Indiana only heightens 10-year-old Caleb's frustrations with feeling ordinary. When he and his older brother, Bobby Gene, meet smooth-talking 16-year-old Styx Malone, a whole new world of excitement, and its frequent companion trouble, opens up. Enthralled by cool kid Styx, Caleb and Bobby Gene are roped into an "escalator trade," whereby the boys attempt to trade small things for increasingly more valuable items in the hopes of eventually trading up to a shiny moped. The characters are magnetic; Styx in particular unfolds into a touchingly human young man withstanding the buffets of foster care. The themes of friendship, trust, rebellion, and safety strongly flavor the book without overpowering the easy fun. VERDICT A summertime romp filled with trouble-making, camaraderie, and substance. A solid purchase, especially for collections where realism circulates well.-Erin Reilly-Sanders, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
Cooler-than-cool newcomer Styx Malone takes the more-sheltered brothers Caleb and Bobby Gene on a mischievous, path-altering, summer adventure of a lifetime as they embrace the extraordinary possibilities beyond the everyday in rural Indiana. Readers may think an adventure such as they'll find here wouldn't be possible in the present day; this story takes place outside, where nature, know-how, creativity, and curiosity rule. Creeks, dirt roads, buried treasures, and more make up the landscape in Sutton, Indiana. Younger brother Caleb narrates, letting readers know from the outset that he's tired of his dad's racially tinged determination that they be safely ordinary: "I don't want to be ordinary. I want to be...the other thing." With Styx Malone around, Caleb and Bobby Gene will sure figure out what that "other thing" can become. The three black adolescents are enchanted with the miracle of the Great Escalator Trade, the mythic one-thing-leads-to-another bartering scheme that just might get them farther from Sutton than they've ever dreamed. As they get deeper and deeper into cahoots with Styx, they begin to notice that Styx harbors some secret ambitions of his own, further twisting this grand summer journey. "How do you move through the world knowing that you're special, when no one else can see it?" begs the soul of this novel.Heartening and hopeful, a love letter to black male youth grasping the desires within them, absorbing the worlds around them, striving to be more otherwise than ordinary. Please share. (Fiction. 8-12)

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Starred review from September 17, 2018
This memorable novel about three African-American boys in small-town Indiana opens with a trade: Bobby Gene and his little brother, Caleb, swap their baby sister for a sack of fireworks. Though the child is returned immediately, the brothers (ages 11 and 10) get to keep the fireworks. But what to do with them? Enter Styx Malone, a charismatic teen (who’s “sliding through the world like the air around him was greased”), who tells the siblings, “You just gotta learn how to make people give you things.” Styx convinces them that the trio can make a profit on the fireworks and, through a creatively convoluted trade-up sequence (involving old car parts, a lawn mower, and some Harley-Davidson memorabilia), could end up owning a snazzy moped. Beneath the entertaining shenanigans runs an affecting emotional current: Styx has ricocheted from one foster home to another and aches for a loving home; narrator Caleb grapples with the fear that he is “ordinary” and feels smothered by his overprotective father. Interweaving themes of risk taking and trust, betrayal and forgiveness, Magoon (How It Went Down) crafts a novel that is genuinely funny, heartbreaking, and uplifting—extraordinary, in fact. Ages 8–12. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown Ltd.

September 1, 2018
Grades 3-6 After meeting a fascinating new friend, two brothers have the summer of a lifetime. Caleb wants more than his sheltered life in Sutton, Indiana. But his dad knows how dangerous the world can be, especially for black boys, so he prohibits Caleb and his older brother, Bobby Gene, from having the adventures Caleb craves. When Caleb and Bobby Gene meet the cool, smart, smooth-talking Styx Malone in the woods one day, the boys hatch an intricate plan to procure a moped, which promises freedom and excitement. As the boys have adventures?some fun, some scary?Caleb discovers more about himself, his brother, and Styx, whose bravado belies a sad past. Magoon creates a summer adventure with humor, heart, and a touch of melancholy. Caleb's first-person narration is funny and effortlessly engaging as he yearns for something more than his small town and interacts with characters that both share and reject his thirst for extraordinary adventures. A hopeful story with a captivating cast of characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)