Saber-Tooth

Complex ruminations on gender identity, loneliness, and neurodiversity accompany layered interpretations of grief and anger in this eloquent verse novel. All summer long, autistic and transgender incoming eighth grader Jasper Amato’s older brother Callan has been promising that they would go fossil hunting together around their rural Pennsylvania home. The two are close: Callan, Jasper’s only friend, even helped him choose a name when Jasper came out a year ago. But when summer ends and Callan prepares to leave for college, Jasper purposefully breaks his brother’s laptop. As eighth grade begins, the youth feels as if his “heart is full/ of magma bubbling/ and then cooling.” Contending with a deep sense of spite and abandonment (“Why does something so happy for [Callan]/ have to feel so terrible/ for me?”), Jasper begins his own backyard dig; he’s soon terrified when he hears a voice from underground: “Here, I am here.” The buried entity claims to be a saber-toothed tiger who pleads for Jasper to unearth them. When Jasper succeeds, however, he realizes that the mysterious being is something far more frightening than the saber-toothed tigers on the posters that adorn his bedroom wall. Utilizing spare and stirring free verse, Gow (Gooseberry) artfully explores the sometimes turbulent emotions that come with growing up and growing apart, culminating in a heartening, deeply felt work. The Amatos cue as white. Ages 10–14. Agent: Jordan Hamessley, JABberwocky Literary. (Jan.)