The Way to Stay in Destiny

October 27, 2014
It’s May 1974, and Theo M. Thomas is begrudgingly taken in by his gruff Uncle Raymond, a Vietnam vet, and brought from Kentucky to the small town of Destiny, Fla., on the Gulf Coast (Theo’s parents died when he was young, and his grandparents can no longer care for him). They move into Miss Sister Grandersole’s Rest Easy Rooming House and Dance Academy, where Theo is saddled with chores and ordered around by his uncle, who wants little to do with him. Theo isn’t looking forward to starting sixth grade at a new school until he meets the mayor’s daughter, Anabel, who shares his love of baseball. Miss Sister encourages Theo to use his talent for playing the piano at the academy’s recital, but just when Theo feels that his destiny is at his fingertips, Uncle Raymond threatens to uproot him again. With an eye and ear for period details and dialogue, Scattergood (Glory Be) builds a cast of memorable, realistically flawed characters in an affecting story about holding on to one’s dreams. Ages 8–12. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt.

November 15, 2014
Music and baseball history combine to convince sixth-grader Thelonious Monk Thomas that Destiny, Florida, should be his hometown.When Uncle Raymond, a Vietnam vet still hurting from the war and from his dead sister's anti-war activities, brings orphaned Theo to Destiny in May 1974, he warns him not to get attached. But in Rest Easy, their new rooming house, Theo finds a piano to play and a determined landlady, dance teacher Miss Sister Grandersole, who encourages his musical gift just as energetically as his angry uncle discourages it. Theo also finds a friend in classmate Anabel Johnson, who loathes dance but loves baseball. She enlists him in a project to find evidence of major league baseball players who lived in town 20 years earlier. Did Hank Aaron once stay where Theo lives? Theo tells of his first weeks in Destiny in a not-completely-convincing first-person, present-tense narrative that moves quickly through the days, culminating in his accompanying a dance recital and finding a way to stay as well as a possible Hank Aaron sighting. It's puzzling that no one mentions skin color, not even when characters talk about Aaron in the 1950s, when the "tall, skinny guy" would have been living and dining in accommodations separate from most of his teammates. Doesn't quite hit the right notes. (Historical fiction. 9-13)

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January 1, 2015

Gr 4-6-When 12-year-old Theo's grandparents become too elderly and ill to care for him, his surly uncle Raymond, a Vietnam War vet, reluctantly takes him from the family home in the hills of Kentucky to the small town of Destiny, FL. They end up residing at the Rest Easy Rooming House & Dance Academy, which is owned and operated by the lovely Miss Sister Grandersole, a former Rockette. Theo (whose full name is Thelonius Monk Thomas, after the jazz musician) finds in Miss Sister a friend and advocate, who also encourages his musical prodigy on the piano even though his uncle forbids it. Set in the 1970s, the town of Destiny is awash in steamy southern atmosphere and baseball history-Hank Aaron and others are purported to have stayed and practiced there. The cast of lively characters, including spunky Anabel who befriends Theo, come to life under author Scattergood's talented hand. A heartwarming story of friendship, family, and finding one's place in the world despite hardship and heartache.-Madeline J. Bryant, Los Angeles Public Library

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