Cammie McGovern

Benny's mom's advice to help other people doesn't make a lot of sense to Benny - not when his family is the one with the worst problems. Benny's brother George is autistic, and their father recently had an aneurysm (which everyone assured Benny was not his fault, so of course he's convinced that it was). Benny's dad isn't back to normal yet at all, and they're not sure if he ever will be. Meanwhile, at school, Benny's old best friend has moved away and he has to settle for Jeremy - but he also discovers that Olga, who is legally blind, is pretty fun to talk to. Benny just wishes he could be good at something, and when his school starts a program for kids to get footprints on a wall for doing kind deeds, Benny thinks at least he can earn a footprint - but he doesn't.

Fourth grade is complicated - or maybe that's just life. Benny's kindness shines through the book, and his oldest brother, Martin, also figures out that kind is better than cool. They also learn not just how to give help, but how to receive it.

See also: Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson, Rules by Cynthia Lord

Quotes

The only problem with moving up the cool ranks is that it can be a big mistake if you're not really a cool person. It can mean sitting at a lunch table and laughing at stories when you have no idea at all what's funny about them. (33)

Jeremy is nice to me about 75 percent of the time; 25 percent of the time he says things to remind me that he's better than me at everything. (66)

"You don't think you could ever, in a million years, handle it, and then it happens and you do. You just go one day at a time and suddenly you realize, here I am. I'm handling it. (Mom to Benny, 159)

Bigger problems put littler ones in perspective. (172)… (more)

Loved this! It was a compulsive read..had to finish it once I started it.

Here is the blub from amazon:
From Publishers Weekly
This is a difficult book for a reader. Fletcher has a clean, clear voice for the narrator and for Cara, mother of an autistic child who is found in the woods near the dead body of a retarded girl. But her other voices are unconvincing; they all sound so off that it's hard to distinguish autistic children and adults from those who aren't. Morgan, the boy who solves the murder, sounds like a deranged adult, while young Chris, who lures a teen bully into the woods, sounds like a peculiar man uttering short, jerky words and phrases. Although wrapped like a mystery, this is really a book about autism, about the numerous forms it can take, about parents who do or don't devote themselves to understanding and helping their children. All of this is genuinely interesting, but as a novel it's contrived. The children's interior monologues give the reader a glimpse into their thought processes, but are so detailed they don't ring true. (One child distinguishes between "mean" and "cruel" behavior-verbal vs. physical abuse.) The mystery is less compelling than the author's valuable insights into our "compassion, disdain, terror and pity" for these youngsters.… (more)