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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Sumner, Jamie

Tune It Out

288 pp. | Atheneum | September, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5344-5700-3 $17.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-5344-5702-7 $10.99
(2) 4-6 When she slides off the road while driving to pick her mother up from work in a Lake Tahoe snowstorm--in a truck that is also their home--twelve-year-old Lou Montgomery ends up in state custody. A social worker deposits her in Tennessee with an aunt she has never met, and she finds herself in school for the first time in years. Middle-class norms are an adjustment for Lou, as is the encouragement to come to terms with her undiagnosed (and unacknowledged by her mother) sensory processing disorder. Lou gradually learns to accept the support that surrounds her--especially the friendship of her neighbor Well, who turns her into a theater kid--and to understand and manage her condition. But when her mother reestablishes contact, Lou finds her hard-won self-confidence challenged. Sumner does an excellent job of bringing readers into Lou's interior world ("The sounds actually hurt, like knives someone is throwing at me") and demonstrating her growth over the course of the book. Lou's mother is a compelling foil, frustrating in her self-centeredness but also determined to do her best, as she sees it; and Well and the other secondary characters provide a rich backdrop for Lou's story.
Reviewer: Sarah Rettger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

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