All the Impossible Things

by Lindsay Lackey

Maud Hart Lovelace nominee 2022-23

Published: 2019

Genre: YA realistic fiction with some supernatural elements

Red (Ruby) is in foster care. It's time to change to a new house and she is simply counting down the days until her mother is out of jail and she can return to live with her.

But Jackson and Celine Groove are different. And they welcome Red with patience, gentleness, and the animals of the Groovy petting zoo. Tuck the tortoise becomes Red's special friend.

I loved the characters in this book! Celine and Jackson are fantastic and give Red room to be herself. Marvin is quirky and delightful. I love that the animals have literary names.

The supernatural aspect is that Red (and her mother) have the ability to control the wind and weather. Red's Gamma could "dance things to life." Celine can make the stars sing.

The realistic elements are stronger than the supernatural, though, and the author makes a great statement at the end about how sometimes young people's emotions are bigger than they can deal with - like a huge storm brewing. Actually, her entire Author's Note is worth reading!

Page 177: ""She thought of The Mom's three boys, how much they'd hated her. Bio kids had a way of making parents change their minds about being fosters."

This made me think about when Louie and I had talked about adoption. We weren't sure if it would be fair to our bio children to bring in other kids who might need more of our time, energy, and attention . . . Obviously a moot point now.

Chapter 46 (starting on page 268) - I'm amazed at how Marvin has a sense of storytelling in planning out one of his videos. It's pretty cool how he explains to Red what they need to do to make an effective video by using the analogy of a dog rescue video.

Page 333 (and once earlier) - each time the pills that Red's mom Wanda is addicted to get dumped in the sink and washed away, I cringe! Pills should NOT be put into the water system! This is terrible and can be detrimental to the health of an entire ecosystem! I'm so glad it's super easy to get them to a drop box in real life so they can be disposed of properly. I get what the author and characters were trying to do, but I don't like reading about medications being put into the water system.

Page 355: "I was sad. My rage was spent, but my grief wasn't. Grief isn't like anger. Anger can burn out. It can be released. But grief is something that becomes a part of you. And you either grow comfortable with it and learn how to live your life in a new way, or you get stuck in it, and it destroys you."

Celine is amazing! I love that she was able to listen to Red and encourage her.

Page 367: "Red would never forget what losing Gamma had been like. It was a sadness that would stay with her forever. Watching Celine go through surgery and chemotherapy and everything else would be hard. Red knew that. But it would be impossible - for both of them - if they didn't have each other."

Sorry for the spoiler! This is a really good book. Read it. I hope this author is going to write more. For a debut novel, this has a lot of heart and finesse.