Synopsis
On stage is the last place on Earth Kira, Jake, or Eugene want to be.
"I'm not a human jukebox," Kira tells her dad, "or a dancing doll, or a puppet, where you press a button and I'll entertain you!" Yet since arriving in New York City, she's had to sing "Amazing Grace" and "Me and Bobby McGee" with him and her two little brothers, Chris and Charlie, for handouts on a subway platform. Singing like an angel. Wanting to stop singing forever.
Jake sings, but only in his dreams. In real life he'll do anything to keep his mouth shut because of his stutter.
Eugene's greatest dream is that the world will laugh with him and not at him. Eugene sings like a foghorn.
Ms. Hill, the school's music teacher, has ambitions for them all.
"My alto section could use some boys," she tells Jake and Eugene after they've been thrown out of the lunchroom for a kimchi incident, and she spots them eyeing her poster:
"Uh, I don't think that would be us," Eugene says. "We're nonjoiners. Trust me. This works for everyone."
Until Jake meets Kira.
Publishers Weekly
Frank's (Oy, Joy!) tender novel centers on a pair of troubled teens who find themselves, and each other, through music (and through an abandoned duck named Dirk). Talented singer Kira moves to New York City to live with her father, an out-of-luck musician whose wife has just left him with their two small boys. While performing with him in the subway, she meets Jake, who has trouble speaking because of a severe stutter, and his eccentric best friend, Eugene. They connect when they come across each other and a duck thrown out in an alley, which Kira agrees to adopt; their relationship strengthens when they join their school's chorus. Frank credibly presents the characters and their problems: through the teens' alternating perspectives, readers learn that Kira's dad drives a cab at night, forcing her to cook and care for her brothers, and Jake's been skipping school and even lies to his parents about seeing a speech therapist. Their chorus teacher encourages them to find their "joyous" selves within and, thanks to some plotting from Eugene plus a mutual love, they begin to do just that. Readers can't help but applaud. Ages 10-14. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.