Review: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick
Title: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie
Paperback, 304 pages
Author: Jordan Sonnenblick
Publisher: Scholastic
Publication Date: January 1, 2004
Source: Purchased
Buy: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads
Book Summary:
Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven’s world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with his brother’s illness and his parents’ attempts to keep the family in one piece.
Review:
What an excellent protagonist!
Heidi from YA Bibliophile recommended the Jordan Sonnenblick books to me on Twitter not long ago, and when B&N had a big sale I bought them. I can’t pass up a contemporary YA recommendation! To add to that, Sonnenblick has a new book publishing in March!
The story in Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie really is kind of sad, because Steven’s little brother Jeffrey gets sick and that is what the book deals with. However, Steven as a protagonist is excellent and has an awesome sense of humor, so it’s not as hard to read about Jeffy being sick (I mean, it’s still not a happy topic, but, you know).
Maybe the most exciting thing to me is that there is a companion to Drums – After Ever After. Which is also a companion to another Sonnenblick book, Notes From the Midnight Driver. Or so I’m told. I love companions! I can’t tell you anything about After Ever After because it would ruin Drums (don’t go read the summary of After Ever After!) but I am very excited that I decided to buy them all at once so I can read them close together :)
I LOVE Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie. I read the entire thing in a night! If you like that book, I highly recommend Neal Shusterman’s The Schwa Was Here. Not nearly as heavy a topic, but the cute narration and humor is still present.
Colleen @ Indie’s Bookshelf recently posted..A Random Musing…
Thank you for the recommendation! I didn’t have that one on my wishlist yet :)
Such a serious subject for such a fun quirky title! Wow!
wall-to-wall books-wendy recently posted..Conquering your Goliaths A Parable of the Five Stones Guidebook
I loved this book! It’s one of the 10 we’re using for our middle school battle of the books. My students have loved it as well and have fought over checking out After Ever After. I had NO IDEA that Notes from the Midnight Driver had any links to these 2 books except the same author. I’ll definitely be checking into that one!
I love when students are fighting over library books – it makes ones that weren’t interested before want to check it out too :) There were big fights in the elementary school I was at for those Pinkalicious books :p
I didn’t know they were all related either, but my librarian friend says it’s so! I haven’t read them to be able to say how, but I’m excited.
Twitter: booksandwine
Heidi’s recommendations are legit! I really want to read Drums Girls And Dangerous Pie. Because okay, I like sad books, but I also like humor. And books with siblings.