Octavia Boone's Big Questions About Life, the Universe, and Everything

Starred review from September 27, 2010
Questions of theology, science, and how to live responsibly in community confront seventh-grader Octavia in Rupp's (Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living) unsettling, thought-provoking, and sensitive exploration of the intersections of faith, work, and family. When Octavia's mother, a lifelong "seeker," abandons her law practice to join a fundamentalist Christian sect, Octavia contends with rival interpretations of religion offered by her various smalltown Vermont neighbors and the prescriptive rules of the Sunday school she's forced to attend. Parallel science fairs highlight conflicting worldviews, offering moments of irony, such as when a female Christian student employs charts and graphs to demonstrate women's unscientific nature; humor, when experiments go awry; and frustration at the limits of scientific inquiry, exemplified by Octavia's inconclusive results. Octavia's synesthetic sensibilities (she sees letters with color and texture), help her integrate divergent viewpoints, but cannot erase the crushing grief that comes as beloved holiday traditions unravel in her broken home or her bewilderment at her parents' inexplicable choices. This hopeful novel highlights the resilience of children and the courage of those who seek truth in a complicated world. Ages 9–12.

August 1, 2010

Gr 5-8-Seventh-grader Octavia Boone is having a tumultuous and life-changing year. Her mother, who has always been flighty and in search of fulfillment, becomes enamored with a fundamentalist religious group. She soon begins a radical transformation that ultimately results in her moving in with fellow Redeemers a few towns over. Octavia's problems are exacerbated by her father, who constantly quotes Henry David Thoreau. He is angry at his wife and rather selfish to begin with. While Octavia is respectful of religion, she does not like the Redeemers and questions why this is all happening. She decides that if she is able to use her science-fair project to prove that there is no god, her mother will come home and everything will go back to normal. Rupp does exhibit a bias against some aspects of this religious group and also shows that adults are not always right, do not always know what is best, and can be quite flawed. The sensory condition synesthesia is used as a device, but seems a bit unnecessary in a story that already has so many complicating elements. However, there are great lessons to be learned about judging others and being torn between opposing views, and the author does show how hard it can be to be a kid sometimes.-Kerry Roeder, The Brearley School, New York City

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2010
Rupp tackles some heavy material in this provocative middle-grade novel. Once Octavia's mother, Ray, joins the Fellowship of the Redeemer church, their formerly happy household quickly unwinds. Ray had always encouraged Octavia to be an individual, question authority and think for herself. But Ray's total acceptance of the church's doctrine, which is the antithesis of her former beliefs, leaves Octavia and her dad confused. Then, just before Christmas, a holiday the church does not celebrate, Ray leaves to live with other Redeemer disciples. Narrator Octavia revisits her seventh-grade year to find a reason for Ray's turnabout, revealing a young girl struggling to make sense of things she has little control over. Her chatty, opinionated, often funny account makes manifest her precociousness, establishing the believability of her insightful-beyond-her-years arguments against organized religion—which make vigorous discussion fodder. The year that changed her life leaves Octavia with some big questions: "What makes a more-or-less normal person with a more-or-less normal life suddenly go off the deep end about God?" Readers may well find themselves wondering the same. (Fiction. 9-12)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)