Acclaimed author Shanthi Sekaran delivers a poignant and powerful story about grief, family, dance, and friendship that follows a young girl who accidentally travels back in time to meet her dad as a child.
When Boomi’s dad dies of COVID, the rest of her life topples like a row of dominoes. First, her best friend, Bebe, stops talking to her. Then she gets kicked out of her ballet academy. Her mom becomes hyperfocused on her weight. Her grandmother Paati sinks further into the shadows of her mind.
Then Boomi is given one last gift from her dad: his old boombox. Inside it, she finds a mix tape and a note: You can change your life. When she presses play on the boombox, her life really does change: she’s magically transported to Thumpton-on-Soar, England, 1986. And her dad’s there! But he doesn’t know he’s her dad—he’s twelve, just like Boomi.
Boomi starts to see what being twelve was like for her dad, growing up Indian in a town that wanted to silence people like him. She starts to understand why he never went back. But why is Boomi sent back to Thumpton? Is she supposed to save her dad? Or change her life?
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Gr 3–7—Boomi is having a hard year. Her dad died of COVID-19, her best friend isn't talking to her, and her mother is caught up in her own grief, making her simultaneously distant and overly involved. She has put Boomi on a restrictive diet and scheduled a "make up" audition to be admitted into an advanced ballet class Boomi no longer has any interest in. In the midst of the chaos, a family friend gives her an old boombox that her father asked him to pass on to her. After discovering a mixtape and a message from her father inside that tells her she can change her life, Boomi plays the tape, and is instantly teleported back in time to 1986 and her father's childhood home in a fictional English town. Though Boomi knows she can't tell her father who she is to him, she becomes fast friends with him and eventually with his rebellious sister, as well as her grandmother, who lives with them in the present but has nonverbal dementia. While jumping back and forth across time, Boomi comes to realize that her experiences in the past are impacting the present, which eventually causes a problem in the 1980s that she must fix to make things right in her own time. Sekaran masterfully balances the harsh reality of Boomi's present with the fantastical elements of the novel. Both time periods read with equal interest, as readers wonder if Boomi can indeed change her own and her family's circumstances. The chapters are themed and structured by the songs on the 1980s mixtape, most of which will be unfamiliar to younger readers but may pique their interest to investigate. All major characters in the family are East Indian and the plot deals with the prejudices of the eras. VERDICT Sensitively captures the isolation of COVID-19 and loss of a parent. Boomi is a relatable, self-aware character readers will be rooting for as she navigates myriad social, familial and personal issues in both time periods. Highly recommended.—Juliet Morefield