“Who doesn’t want to save the parks and schools?”

From the recent decision on the salmon case that originated in the state of Washington to this week’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS has been much in the news lately.

Although if Kavanaugh makes it through the confirmation process, it’s unlikely his visage will appear in the pages of Dave Eggers next book.

Justice Ginsburg, however, does make several appearances in Eggers' most recent novel for young readers – The Lifters (illustrated by  Aaron Renier) – on the favorite t-shirt of Catalina Catalan. Catalina has been the only student at Carousel Middle School to acknowledge the new kid in class, who has the unfortunate name of Granite Flowerpetal.

Granite, or Gran (as he’s renamed himself), has just moved to town with his down-on-their-luck family. Although they have a roof over their heads, thanks to a ramshackle house passed down from his great-great-grandparents, they are short on cash since the job offered to Gran’s father as a mechanic never materializes. Actually, the whole town is in a depression of sorts since the main industry, a carousel factory, closed several years before. It’s also a town divided, with factions fighting for and against new propositions.

Gran soon discovers Catalina’s after-school job isn’t mowing lawns or babysitting, but lifting – placing new supports in the complex network of tunnels beneath the town. At first, Catalina rejects Gran’s offers of help, but soon realizes he’s a worthy nemesis rather than nuisance.  The two make a discovery well-below the surface which proves to be the boost the town needs to banish the Hollows forever.

Younger readers may appreciate the one page (and even one line) chapters sprinkled throughout the book and the imaginative excuses Gran thinks up to explain an overnight absence:

“Could he say he had been caught in a bear trap? That he’d been kidnapped by rogue scientists forcing him to test jetpack technology?”

Older readers may appreciate the nods to our current political divisiveness and syntax straight out of Hemingway:

“He had to go home. And he knew there would be trouble at home. But he had to face it, and he had to hurry.”

P.S.

If you haven’t had your fill of SCOTUS, I suggest checking-out Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World.