about the book
Auggie Jones loves her Missouri neighborhood, Serendipity Place. Sure, it’s run down and people have a hard time making ends meet but everyone is friendly. Since her pa abandoned her and her wild ma took off chasing a modeling career, Auggie lives with her Grandpa Gus.
The new school year is about to start and Auggie can hardly wait. Because her old school was condemned and is being torn down, Auggie and her friends Lexie and Irma Jean will be attending Dickerson, the fancy school in the wealthy neighborhood. But from the very first day, Auggie feels like a fish out of water. The snobs let the new kids know right off that they are from the wrong side of the tracks.
Auggie never thought of herself as poor! She’s always been proud of how everyone makes do. Lexie can style any hair-do and Irma Jean sews up trendy outfits out of Walmart dollar-a-yard clearance fabrics.
And Gus, well he is the most inventive of all. A trash hauler, what he makes out of the recycled stuff is truly amazing. Now Auggie is feeling self-conscious about the things she once took pride in. To make matters worse, Lexie takes a shine to Victoria, the school’s snooty queen bee, and Auggie ends up with one less friend!
Victoria’s father is the head of the town’s House Beautification Committee; after the influx of poor kids into his daughter’s school, he is now aware of Serendipity Place—and he wants to condemn the entire neighborhood! Vague violation letters demand that the residents clean up their ramshackle abodes according to the Committee’s arbitrary requirements. Most do not have the cash to make the changes or pay the fines.
Forced to spruce up their home on the corner of Sunshine and Lucky, Auggie and Gus have their ideas on home renovations. They make all sorts of stain glass windows, a metal flower garden out of old toaster bits and pieces, and spinning whirligigs from old car parts. During the process, Auggie realizes she is really good at creating folk art!
But that’s not what the Committee envisioned, and they levy additional fines. This spurs Auggie to stand up for her beliefs. In this battle of the haves against the have-nots, who is going to win?
about the author
Holly Schindler was writing short stories at her child-sized roll top desk by the time she was in first grade. A painfully shy child, writing gave her a voice.
When Holly was in fifth grade, she started going with her folks to farm auctions near their Missouri city. Most of the time, she spent the hours under some big old shade tree with a pile of books, but she also did a lot of crowd-watching and scribbling—often in the margins of the books. A lot of those scribbles were about the interesting characters she saw or about the handmade items for sale: the reinvented hand-forged farm tools, the intricate quilts out of old castoff clothes, or the primitive furniture made out of barn wood or other finds. Little did she realize that decades later, those impressions would inspire The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky.
Off to Missouri State University, Holly studied English and earned a master’s degree. Upon graduation, she jumped right into writing and, to help pay the pesky bills, she tutored English and gave piano and guitar lessons. Inspired by her students, she decided to write for teens as well as adults. Luckily she had all those scribblings she had done during her school years to help her find her teen voice!
Even now, she always carries paper to scribble fresh ideas, opening lines, poetry fragments, or snappy titles. The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky is her first middle grade novel; it came to her first as a bunch of interesting characters and just spiraled out after that. The first person she envisioned was Grandpa Gus.
Her second passion is music: metal, bluegrass, and everything in-between. She keeps her impressive collection of CDs, vinyls. and concert stubs in her Springfield, Missouri, home. She lives in the city, but right behind her house there are fields, barns, hay bales, horses, and cows!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview: The Book Monsters
Book trailer: Junction of Sunshine and Lucky
Author video about writing
Author’s tips for writing a Middle Grade novel: Valerie Storey
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