about the book
Joseph hasn’t had an easy life. He was abused at home. He fell in love with a rich girl and at age 13, she became pregnant. After Joseph attacks a teacher, though, he finds himself slammed in a juvenile detention center with zero contact from his girlfriend and soon-to-be-born baby.
When he gets out of juvie, he is sent to live with the Hurd family in small-town Maine. After his experiences in jail, Joseph is mostly mute, he dislikes being touched, doesn’t like the color orange, and hates being approached from behind. Luckily, the simplicity, kindness, and routines offered by the Hurds help him to open up, and eventually he becomes close to his foster brother, twelve-year-old Jack.
When Jack realizes that the most important thing to Joseph is having a chance to reunite with his baby girl, Jupiter—it becomes a serious obsession for Joseph—the two of them forge a deep, brotherly bond. The pair will have to work together to make Joseph’s dream a reality, and the journey will not be without sacrifice for either of the boys as they learn what it truly means to be part of a family.
about the author
Born in Hicksville, New York, Gary D. Schmidt was a quiet, untrendy kid who was the only Baptist in a school of Catholics and Jews, and he found his classmates interesting.
Gary lived for summer camp, working his way up to camp director. The best part of camp was a local bookstore, where he could buy a book for eight cents!
Gary earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Gordon College, and a master’s in English and a PhD in Medieval Literature from the University of Illinois. While working on his dissertation, he decided he needed a break—so he wrote the first page of a children’s novel. That novel was never published, but it started him on the path to become an award-winning author. Two of his books have won Newbery Honors.
Gary is currently a professor of English at Calvin College in Michigan. A successful battle with lymphatic cancer shaped his writing career. He takes two distinct paths—writing academically and writing creatively.
Gary lives on a farm in Alto, Michigan, with his wife and six children. Spare time is spent vegetable gardening, cutting and splitting wood (a good time to think about plots and characters), and collecting first editions.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography: Calvin College
Author biography: Wikipedia
Author discusses Okay For Now
Author video interview: authormagazine.org
Book Trailer: Orbiting Jupiter
Also by Gary D. Schmidt:
What Came from the Stars. Clarion. 2012.
Okay For Now. Clarion. 2011.
Trouble. Clarion. 2008.
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. Clarion. 2004.
Straw Into Gold. Clarion. 2001.
Anson’s Way. Clarion. 1999.
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