AFTER EVER AFTER

AFTER EVER AFTER, by Jordan Sonnenblick (Scholastic 2010)(Ages 10+). At age four, Jeffrey was diagnosed with leukemia. Through his treatment, and ever since, his stalwart older brother Steven has been there. Until this summer, when Steven suddenly left college and family behind, to "find himself" in Africa.

And now that Jeffrey's in eighth grade, he must face the perils of girls and math and parents and testing and his idiosyncratic best friend Tad, a fellow cancer survivor, on his own...Feeling abandoned by his brother (the protagonist of DRUMS, GIRLS, AND DANGEROUS PIE), Jeffrey emerges from the shadow of being "The kid who had cancer," and the problematic younger brother of the perfect Steven, to decide what and who he wants to be. And what it all means.

In this bittersweet and elegant sequel to DRUMS, GIRLS, AND DANGEROUS PIE, Sonnenblick provides Jeffrey with a wisdom borne of his experience with cancer that almost belies his years, yet which is still genuinely that of an eighth grader. At once funny and profound, AFTER EVER AFTER is both heart-warming and thought-provoking.