The Book of Jupiter

Written by Robin Stevenson

Kids Can Press

978-1525313028

220 pp.

Ages 10–14

June 2026 

 

Thirteen-year-old Ara lives with Father Jupiter, Mothers Io, Amalthea, Callisto, Elara, and Dia, and more than half a dozen Star Children at Jupiter Station. When three auspicious things happen, Father Jupiter takes it as a sign. First, it is Ara's birthday. Secondly, Mother Io becomes stardust, the first of their "family" to Ascend to Jupiter. Third, baby Nova is born to new member Dia, whom Father Jupiter had brought from the city. To honour this trifecta, Father Jupiter gives Ara baby Nova to care for. Ara takes this honour very seriously, believing that Father Jupiter is wise and wants to ensure they all Ascend.

 

But then Ara's brother Leo expresses Doubts—capitalized because of their significance—to her, remembering things before they came to Jupiter Station. And then Ara, who often skirts the outside of their rural property, meets a girl, Hazel, who is visiting her grandfather across the river. She knows she shouldn't engage with Hazel but, with Leo questioning their lives at Jupiter Station, Ara is ready to divulge all to Father Jupiter. But then they are told that Leo has Ascended. Leo was only 16. This raises more Questions for Ara, and Questions are verboten. 

 

When Ara finds a letter from Leo, she learns some uncomfortable truths. Now she must decide whether she should question Father Jupiter about his decisions and teachings from the Book of Jupiter, or whether she will continue to accept his words as truth and authority and remain within a community that may not be what it purports to be.

 

A story based in a cult has the potential to be disquieting at best or frightening at worst. But Robin Stevenson, who can tell any story with nuance—from YA stories of mental health (e.g., The World Without Us, 2015), to middle-grade stories of grief (e.g., Record Breaker, 2013), and even non-fiction about LGBTQ+ activism (e.g., Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism, 2024)—tells the story of Jupiter Station with sensitivity. From Ara's perspective, Jupiter Station is home. It is where she lives with her brother, their father (and other fathers), mothers, and children, and she receives food and shelter. For many children, this would be more than enough. But perception is everything, and when Leo tells her stuff that they'd been cautioned to never speak of, and Ara has her own Questions and Doubts, her perspective is affected. For Ara, the story becomes a coming-of-age story, as she transitions from blind obedience to attentiveness and finally enlightenment. She begins to truly see. And Ara sees with a good heart, ensuring that she will protect others as she challenges what she is living.

 

The Book of Jupiter, currently a nominee for the Forest of Reading's Red Maple readers' choice book award, is a story about a girl who happily lives within a familial construct until she sees something different there. Her loyalty to her brother and her consideration of what she feels and see and hears give her the courage to face what was always there. Ara can't deal with the megalomaniac himself—nor should she—but she can step outside the familiar to do what is right for herself and others. As such, Robin Stevenson gives us a happy-enough ending, showing that Ara ascended in her own maturity and personal growth, far better than becoming stardust.

The Project

Written by Courtney Summers

Wednesday Books (St. Martin's Press)

978-1-250-10573-8

352 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2021

 

In 2011, when Lo is just 13 years of age, she is critically injured in a car crash that kills her parents. Her 19-year-old sister Bea is called to the hospital and, in the chapel, begs for a miracle and Lev Warren appears. The miracle happens for Lo but Bea disappears from her life, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt Patty.

Six years later, Lo knows Bea has joined Lev Warren's The Unity Project, an organization whose mission is to do good works to atone for all sins and bring salvation. After an earlier exposé investigating The Project as a cult, Lev has tried to keep The Project out of the media, focusing on their community work and annual public sermon. But, now working for SOV magazine, Lo is drawn to look into the organization again. While she has tried numerous times to reconnect with Bea, she is always kept away by Casey Byers, The Project's spokesperson and Lev's right hand. But Lo's interest is piqued by the death of a young man, Jeremy Lewis, whose father Arthur had been trying to save his son from The Unity Project. When Lo sees Bea in the photos Arthur's private investigator took of Jeremy, coupled with numerous voiceless calls she receives, Lo is determined to find Bea and learn more about The Project.

Alternating between the past and the present, primarily over seven years, Lo and Bea's stories unfold with Bea looking to prove herself worthy of a miracle she believes Lev performed and Lo looking for her sister. Their stories are eerily parallel, especially under the charismatic Lev who has become father, friend, therapist and even saviour to members of The Project. Both sisters are bereft because of their losses of family but each feels compelled to action because of The Project. But, it would seem, The Project has other things in mind.

Everyone should be prepared for an unnerving read in The Project. By balancing family and everyday living with the extremes of manipulation and doctrine, it's Courtney Summers at her best. Like her award-winning Sadie (2018), The Project is chilling in its possibilities because this could be someone's reality. A tragic accident, absolute faith in an irresistible leader, family estrangement, a compelling mission and the need for connection could all be elements of any of our lives and with her storytelling Courtney Summers will disquiet readers with the possibilities.

While her plotting is always sophisticated and involved, never leading the reader to a predictable ending, it's Courtney Summers's atmospheric writing that is most captivating. There's a perennial sense of foreboding, even with the most mundane of circumstances, like grabbing a cab or working in an office. Courtney Summers never lets the reader relax and maybe we shouldn't because bad things happen, even if dressed up as good.

 

Lo, the writer, tells Lev that...

If you tell a story–something real, something true–you get to be alive in other people. (pg. 251)

Thankfully Courtney Summers is alive and well by virtue of The Project and all her other stories. She tells the truth, even if it's unsettling.

Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined

Written by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Razorbill

978-0-425-28759-0

368 pp.

Ages 13–17

February 2017

After, I stand for a few moments looking out over the water, the moon reflecting off its glass-like surface.  It's beautiful, yes.  But the beauty doesn't reach me the way it's supposed to because I feel like it's been shoved down my throat.  I register the stark gorgeousness of the dying day, and what it fills me with is unease, and an ominous sensation of cracking inside–of cracking open, of a corresponding excruciating pain I have kept at bay by incredible discipline beginning to seep toward the surface. (pg. 87)

Ingrid Burke must feel like she's been deposited in another world, and one not of her choosing.  In fact, not even one like in the brochure her mother, retired opera singer Margot-Sophia Lalonde, had shown her of Peak Wilderness, an outdoors camp in northern Ontario, to which Ingrid has agreed to go so her mother would permit her attendance at a prestigious music school in London England.  Worse yet, Ingrid, who perceives herself to be “a model citizen and paragon of stability” (pg. 53) compared to the miscellany of other troubled youth campers, must survive three weeks of hiking, canoeing, roughing it, and sharing under the supervision of leaders Pat and Bonnie who seem to enjoy the group’s failures at near impossible tasks.

What happened that led Ingrid to this challenging and repeatedly dangerous situation is told in alternating chapters, organized by Ingrid's age, that speak to her life before Peak Wilderness.  They tell of her life travelling the world with her famous mother and then, after damage to Margot-Sophia’s vocal chords leads them home to Toronto,  the reversal of roles when Margot-Sophia is overcome with depression.  Revealed slowly but with ease are Ingrid’s experiences at school and home, feeling vulnerable and frustrated, fearful and positive, and her attempts to achieve normalcy and some happiness. Eventually we also learn what led her to Peak Wilderness.

My words cannot do justice to the depth of Danielle Younge-Ullman's characterizations and story-telling.  There is so much to share with readers that my words seem sparse and ineffective. But I can tell you that Danielle Younge-Ullman weaves Ingrid’s present and past into a fabric of ordinary and extraordinary, creating a life of tenacity to which most of us could aspire.  Though Ingrid doesn’t want to acknowledge the vulnerabilities that brought her to the camp, Danielle Younge-Ullman provides hints throughout the story–Isaac, an axe and an injured leg–that there is more to the teen’s story than she reveals to others and even to herself.  Her go-to survival mechanisms include a strained positivity —“How exciting, and what a magnificent opportunity to get in touch with my inner savage” (pg. 29)— and silence with a dose of denial.  But beyond Ingrid’s inner turmoil are the relationships the teen has with her mother, her new father, a boy with whom she has a connection, and all the campers.  These relationships drive Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined.  They ebb and flow, both serene and passionate, not unlike the music of a great opera that Margot-Sophia might have performed.  Though Ingrid might think she knows the music of her life really well, she’s just learning to perform it with passion so that she can make it successfully to the triumphant finish. And Danielle Younge-Ullman makes sure that we want to stay for the whole performance without ever nodding off.

****************

On May 6, 2017, Danielle Younge-Ullman will be speaking at the Stratford Writers Festival Young Adult forum along with numerous other YA authors.  I'll post about it here soon but you can get details at http://digiwriting.com/stratford-writers-festival-young-adult-2017/

I'll be there and you should be too!