Pulls at Your Heartstrings

When I was in school I participated in every band option available.  Concert band? check.  Marching band? Check.  Pit Orchestra? Check.  Symphonic Band? Check.  Jazz Band?  Check (I didn't say I was good at all of them-I just said I participated).  So it was easy for me to identify with Steven (even though I played piano and flute and he's a drummer) in Jordan Sonnenblick's Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie.

Steven takes private drum lessons, is in the school band, and the elite All-City Jazz band.  Besides the fact he can't figure out girls at all and his bandmates stuck him with the nickname Peasant, Steven's life is going pretty well.  That is until his little brother Jeffrey falls off a stool in the kitchen and gets the world's biggest nosebleed.

The nosebleed seems unusual because it is unusual.  Jeffrey goes to the hospital because of his nosebleed and he comes back with a leukemia diagnosis.  And just like that everyone's life is turned upside down.  Band practices go from being fun to being the only sane, safe spot in Steven's life.  His mother and brother are traveling two and from Philadelphia multiple times a week for treatment, his father has checked out, bills are pilling up and so is Steven's homework.

I'd love to give you a sense of how it all turns out but that would be a spoiler.   You'll just have to read it yourself.  As the kids say (actually I have no idea of the kids are still saying this or not) this book gives you "all the feels."

Being a protector...that's kids stuff.