Come Fall

by A.C.E. Bauer

Book Overview

Lu Zimmer's best friend moved away last summer. Salman Page is the new kid in school. Blos Pease takes everything literally. Three kids who are on the fringe of the middle school social order find each other and warily begin to bond, but suddenly things start going wrong. Salman becomes the object of the school bully's torment, and Lu's pregnant mother has some unexpected complications. Is something conspiring against them?

In fact, through...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375858261
• ISBN13: 9780375858260
• Release Date: July 2011
• Publisher: Yearling Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Answering a Shakespearean puzzle

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the big dust-up between Titania and Oberon that undergirds the plot was over the queen's favoritism for a little human page-boy from India - but in the play the page-boy never appears on stage, nor is he listed in the cast of characters. Whatever did happen to him? According to Bauer he was transported to the future and the US - I get the impression Connecticut, but I suppose mostly because he says he's from Bridgeport, and the one in CT is the biggest one in the US - and placed with their Department of Family Services, where he shuttled from foster home to foster home until at age 15 he's starting 7th grade at Springfalls Junior High, under the name of Salman Page. He's currently living with a couple, Ozzy and Tina, in a trailer, and Ozzy doesn't like him at all. He's smart enough; he's behind in school because what with changing homes 3-4 times a year he just didn't complete enough schooling to get promoted a couple of times. Springfalls Jr. High has a system where each new 7th grader gets an 8th grader assigned as "designated buddy," who's responsible for seeing the newbies understand how the school works and helping them out as needed. Salman's is Lu-Ellen Zimmer, whose own d.b. the previous year was also d.b. to a rather strange boy named Blos Pease. The three of them - Salman, Lu, and Blos - become friends, and are picked on by a lot of the other kids at the school, though it appears that some of that was instigated by Puck, who turns up as first-person narrator of a number of short chapters through the book. (Well, all the chapters are short, but Puck's are even shorter than the ones from the third-person POVs of Salman, Lu, or Blos.) There's an unusually intelligent crow that also befriends the three of them; he has something to do with Puck as well, but I'm not quite sure what. Anyhow, it's a very enjoyable little book, primarily aimed at the 8-12 market but with plenty of depth for adults who don't eschew reading books just because their intended audience is children.

A bit baffling, but fun

Lu Zimmer, Bos Pease, and Salman Page are not your typical middle schoolers. They are all truly unique and memorable characters in A. C. E. Bauer's newest novel. This is a great story - well most of it is. I must admit that I didn't quite get it, which is very disappointing since I found Bauer's earlier work No Castles Here to be truly outstanding. The characters sucked me right into this story from the very first page. Salman Page is an orphan, or as we later come to find out, a changeling. Lu is missing her best friend who just moved away, and Bos is a literal minded young man who exists somewhere on the autism spectrum. These characters are all very well drawn, and its their friendship that makes this story work. This is a story about fitting in when your'e different, what makes a true friend, and getting to know yourself and what is important to you. On this level, the author works magic. I loved all of these kids and was so eager for them to succeed. Any young reader will see a bit of themselves in these three and will empathize with their problems and celebrate their triumphs. What I just didn't get was the other story going on here at the same time. Every couple of chapters or so, we hear from Puck. Yes, that Puck from Midsummer Nights Dream. Salman has drawn the interest of the faery queen, and as it turns out, she has been keeping an eye on him all these years, and now he is in the middle of an argument between the King and the Queen, who are now spending a lot of time debating whether to interfere in the lives of our three heroes. Puck ends up sticking his hoof in, but only peripherally. The real world and the world of faery never really intersect. The kids never know they were of any interest to anyone in the faery world. Although I understand the author's interest in the Shakespeare play, and that the character of Salman actually sprang from a character in that play, I didn't understand the role the fairies played in the story of Bos, Lu and Salman. This would have been a fantastic story of friendship and growing up without the inclusion of the magical elements. The crow that Salman befriends seems to be the only bridge between these two tales and that connection is tenuous at best. I continue to be a fan of this author and while I didn't get the big picture with this effort, I did love her characters and her writing. Any kiddo ages 9 to 12 will pick this up and find a lot to enjoy. This one is kind of a puzzling recommend. Maybe?