Wink

December 1, 2019
A rare form of cancer takes its toll in this novel based on the author's experience. Seventh grader Ross Maloy wants nothing more than to be an average middle schooler, hanging out with his best friends, Abby and Isaac, avoiding the school bully, and crushing on the popular girl. There's just one thing keeping Ross from being completely ordinary: the rare form of eye cancer that's reduced him to the kid with cancer at school. Ross' eye is closed in a permanent wink, and he constantly wears a cowboy hat to protect his eyes. The doctors are hopeful that Ross will be cancer free after treatment, but his vision will be impaired, and the treatments cause him to lose his hair and require the application of a particularly goopy ointment. This isn't a cancer book built upon a foundation of prayer, hope, and life lessons. The driving force here is Ross' justifiable anger. Ross is angry at the anonymous kids making hurtful memes about him and at Isaac for abandoning him when he needs a friend most. Ross funnels his feelings into learning how to play guitar, hoping to make a splash at the school's talent show. The author balances this anger element well against the typical middle-grade tropes. Misunderstood bully? Check. Well-meaning parents? Check. While some of these elements will feel familiar, the novel's emotional climax remains effectively earned. Characters are paper-white in Harrell's accompanying cartoons. Not your typical kid-with-cancer book. (Fiction. 9-12)

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February 1, 2020

Gr 3-6-Ross Maloy is a middle schooler with bigger problems than most. Diagnosed with a rare eye tumor, he is challenged to maintain normalcy despite taxing cancer treatments. Afraid of pity, Ross also fears losing his close friends Abby and Isaac. Ross's alter ego is Batpig, a character in his comic where he takes refuge from health challenges, relationship problems, anonymous trolls, and hurtful internet memes. He befriends a medical technician who is also a musician, and soon is motivated to learn guitar and perform in a band. The story's beauty lies in how Ross's life unfolds and opens. He forms a ragtag group of friends while undergoing monumental challenges. In response to Ross's cry for normalcy, one close friend, Jerry, says normal shouldn't be the goal: "Different moves the needle. Different is where the good stuff happens. There's strength in different." VERDICT This title is delightfully good and different. Readers will be interested to know that Harrell draws from his personal experience. There are witty comic panels and other art interspersed throughout the text. Highly recommended.-Lisa Gieskes, Richland County Public Library, Columbia, SC

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 3, 2020
Ross wants badly to be a normal seventh grader, but it’s not easy when everyone at school knows he has eye cancer. Besides enduring radiation treatments and their nasty side effects, he’s contending with personal questions, concerned looks, and cheerful wishes from his schoolmates. His best friend, Abby, makes him feel “like something in the world is normal,” but their other friend, Isaac, has all but vanished. When Ross’s radiation tech, Frank, turns him on to music and teaches him to play guitar, he finds an outlet for his anger and frustration and comes to see a new side to a school bully, a drum player, whose cousin lives with Frank. Harrell (the Life of Zarf series), himself a cancer survivor, offers a frank account of cancer’s effects while keeping the subject matter accessible for middle grade readers. Ross never takes himself too seriously, and amusing black-and-white comics trace his unsavory experiences, capture the ironies of his predicament, and underline his creativity and sense of humor. Told in the first person, this lively novel showcases the author’s understanding of middle school angst amid the protagonist’s experience with a serious illness. Ages 9–12.

Starred review from February 15, 2020
Grades 5-7 *Starred Review* In a story more realistic than but filled with the same sardonic humor and celebration of atypical friendships as his Life of Zarf series, Harrell draws from personal experience to track the wild emotional roller coaster a seventh-grader rides after being diagnosed with a rare tear-duct cancer. All Ross really wants to do is keep his head down in public as he goes through an operation and 45 sessions of proton radiotherapy. Unfortunately, what with having to endure all the Concern Face from grown-ups and certain peers and the mortifying necessity of wearing a protective broad-brimmed hat at all times?not to mention the series of ugly Cancer Cowboy memes that show up on everyone's phones at school?there's no hope of anonymity. But along with providing helpfully specific details of Wink's medical treatments, the author supplies him with a truly outstanding supporting cast led by Abby, a frank, extroverted, and longtime bosom buddy. Besides tempests and meltdowns, Wink also finds several effective strategies for coping with his grief and anger, including wish-fulfillment episodes on pages of hand-drawn comics featuring caped crime fighter Batpig (supplemented by frequent spot art). What with betrayals and wrenching departures, Wink may not get quite the ending he hopes for, but he and the readers who have joined him on the ride are left to carry on with a smile.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)