Where Do You Stay?

by Andrea Cheng

Overview

Jerome is staying with his Aunt Geneva and her family, now that his mother has passed away. Aunt Geneva does her best to make Jerome feel welcome, but it just doesn't feel like home. He misses his mother, he misses his piano, and his cousins make it clear they're not happy about the new living arrangements. Then Jerome meets Mr. Willie, who lives in a ramshackle carriage house nearby. Mr. Willie isn't like other people in Jerome's life: he doesn't ask a lot of questions; he just listens. He played the piano as a boy, just like Jerome. Maybe Jerome can find a home again with Mr. Willie. But when the carriage house is slated for demolition, Mr. Willie disappears. Jerome wonders where his friend will stay, and whether he will ever find a place to call home in this Society of School Librarians International Honor Book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629792941
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	09/12/2014
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	136
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
File size:	880 KB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Andrea Cheng teaches English as a Second Language and has written many books for children. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and their three children.

Editorial Reviews

Eleven-year-old Jerome narrates his feelings of displacement and loss following his single mother's long illness and death, as well as his subsequent move into his cousins' house. In conversations that read like prose poems, he reveals his conflicted feelings toward his aunt, who plans to adopt him; the cousins who both resent and desire his presence; and his new residence, which does not feel like home because it has no piano. Painful memories of his mother's decline and the economic stressors that accompany her death confuse Jerome, while a connection with Mr. Willie, a neighborhood fixture who sleeps in a carriage house beside an empty mansion and survives by performing odd jobs, provides a grounding touchstone. By encouraging Jerome to garden and fix up abandoned buildings, Mr. Willie, also a musician, helps keep alive Jerome's hope that music will return to his life. In short chapters of lyrical prose, Cheng (Only One Year) provides a moving tribute to a multigenerational community's ability to sustain and recreate itself in times of change through resilience, hard work, and a commitment to beauty and kindness. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

" Jerome's voice convinces and moves readers without falling into sentimentality. . . . Jerome himself makes a fully realized, deeply sympathetic protagonist." —Kirkus Reviews

"A moving tribute to a multigenerational community's ability to sustain and recreate itself in times of change through resilience, hard work, and a commitment to beauty and kindness." —Publishers Weekly

"Cheng captures a child's uneven passage from the impossible shock of losing his mother to his gradual reentry into life without her." —Booklist

From the Publisher

Gr 5–7—Jerome is living with his aunt and her family after the death of his mother. The sixth grader is processing his loss while also adjusting to a new family life with older cousin Damon, who resents his presence, and younger cousin Monte. Jerome meets Mr. Willie, an older man squatting in the carriage house of an abandoned mansion in the neighborhood, and the two strike up a friendship over a shared love for piano playing. Jerome has someone to talk to about his mother and slowly comes to terms with life in his adoptive family. This short novel captures the fledgling relationship and the difficulties in communication that can occur. The parallel between Mr. Willie's homelessness and Jerome's emotional homelessness are touching as the two go about creating a garden together. Recollections of his mother's teachings are shown in italics and are spot-on in portraying the world through the 11-year-old's eyes.—Shawna Sherman, Hayward Public Library, CA

School Library Journal

From the author ofWhere the Steps Were(2008) comes this story of loss and healing through friendship, family and music. After his mother's brief illness and death from cancer, Jerome Mason, 11, is taken in by her sister's family. Their inner-city neighborhood is located across Cincinnati from Jerome's old home, and Aunt Geneva has sold the piano—central to Jerome's life with Mama and that he misses desperately—to help pay for his upbringing. Rootless and lost, Jerome first resists Aunt Geneva's caring gestures and efforts to integrate him into her family. He finds his cousins Damon, 15, mean and Monte, 10, a needy nuisance. Only Mr. Willie, the elderly man who "stays" in the carriage house of a nearby derelict mansion and does odd jobs, reaches Jerome's heart. Like Mama and Jerome, he plays the piano; as a child he took lessons at the mansion. Perhaps the piano is still there, but before they can find out, Mr. Willie disappears and the house is sold. In spare, pared-down language that makes masterful use of elision, Jerome's voice convinces and moves readers without falling into sentimentality. While the rather abrupt ending leaves unanswered questions, especially about Damon and Mr. Willie, Jerome himself makes a fully realized, deeply sympathetic protagonist.(Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews