The Stars at Oktober Bend
Publisher
Old Barn Books
Publication Year
2016
ISBN
9781910646151
Pages
266 pages
Genre
realism
Format
novel
Item Type
Fiction
Annotation
Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chip shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow. Something inside Manny is broken: he was once a child soldier, forced to do terrible, violent things. But in a new land with new people who will care for him, he spends time exploring on foot. And in his pocket, he carries a poem he scooped up. And he knows the words by heart. When Manny and Alice meet, their relationship brings the beginning of love and healing.
Grade Level
6-8; 9-12
Lexile Measure
1190L
Diversity Topics
Family Relationships; Disability and Health; Family member death; Kinship care; Foster care; Neurological disorder; Mental illness; death of a parent; death; grief; loss; children living with relatives; grandmother raising grandchildren; foster teenager; foster parents; brain damage; traumatic brain injury; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Main Character
female teenager; male teenager
Race/Ethnicities
Black (Sierra Leonean) / White
Family Formation
grandmother; foster mother and father
Awards
Audie Award, 2019, Finalist, Young Adult
Carnegie Medal, 2017, Short List, Children's Book
Prime Minister's Literary Award, 2017, Short List, Young Adult Fiction
UKLA Children's Book Award, 2017, Long List, Ages (12-16)
Keywords
speech; war; child soldier; bullying; friendship; poetry; prison; grandparents; fragile
Diversity Impact
direct
STARS Citation
Millard, Glenda, "The Stars at Oktober Bend" (2016). Diverse Families. 2017.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/2017