Remember Dippy
by Shirley Reva Vernick (Author)
Johnny's plans fly out the window when he finds out his single mother is leaving town for the summer. She has a breakthough job in upstate New York. He can live with his Aunt Collette but only on the condition that he help out with his autistic older cousin, Remember. Yup, you heard it right: Remember Dippy. That's his cousin's name--and Remember is a gawky awkward kid with some pretty strange habits, like repeating back almost everything Johnny says and spending hours glued to the weather channel. Johnny's premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to cringeworthy fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy's romance, and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.
Winner of the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award & 2014 Skipping Stones Honor Award
Shirley Reva Vernick's debut novel The Blood Lie was named on the 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list from the American Library Association. It also received the Simon Wiesenthal Once Upon a World Children's Award and Sydney Taylor Honor Book Award. Shirley lives with her husband, two daughters, and two frisky dogs in western Massachusetts. In addition to running a popular storytelling website--storybee.org--Shirley has written for Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, national newspapers, and the publications of Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Boston universities.
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School Library Journal
Gr 5-8--School is out for summer and Johnny can't wait to enjoy pizza lunches, trips to the lake, and video-game marathons with his friends. Then his mother drops the news: she'll be spending the summer in New York for work and Johnny will be staying with his aunt, taking care of his older, autistic cousin. Remember is different from other teenagers-he doesn't like to be touched, he loves to watch the Weather Channel, he often doesn't know what's socially appropriate. While Remember's mom is at work at the local 7-11, it falls to Johnny to keep an eye on him (and his two ferrets, Jumbalaya and Linguini). Several adventures ensue, and what starts out as a burden ends up being an opportunity for Johnny to learn how to beat previously unbeatable game levels (turns out that Remember is a video-game genius), and how to look for the good in others. Vernick populates Johnny and Remember's town with quirky versions of classic characters, from bullies to curmudgeons with hearts of gold. Although the secondary characters are a bit thinly developed and the plot twists a bit predictable, the author captures an important part of growing up-that time when young people first start to see beyond their own perspectives and really understand the people around them.--Gesse Stark-Smith, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV039150 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Special Needs
JUV013020 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | Marriage & Divorce
Cousins
Autism
