Dusti Bowling

This novel hits your heart and is written for upper elementary and middle school.

Avalyn and her friends spend a lot of time at school staying low. The bullies rule the school, and Avalyn and her friends are perceived to be nerds, so they are frequent targets of the abuse. Avalyn and her friends are wonderful people and greet each other by saying, "Hello, marvelous person." How would you not like people like this?! Avalyn also loves spelling and plans on winning the spelling bee. The words in the novel are splendiferous (to borrow a word from another book that loves words, A Snicker of Magic). Avoiding the bullies takes up school time; Avalyn's other battle deals with her asthma. She almost died as a child in minutes, so her parents packed up and moved to a small town in Arizona. The bullies make fun of Avalyn's asthma and threaten her with taking her inhaler, which she desperately needs multiple times a day. She's never needed her inhaler so much, but dust has mysteriously arrived.

In tandem with the dust, comes Adam. Adam resembles Avalyn and her friends in that he becomes a target for the bullies. They do absolutely terrible things to him. Avalyn wants to help Adam because she believes Adam controls the dust, but she doesn't know what to say or do. They connect with their love of comics. Ultimately, Avalyn must help him so that he can be saved and she can survive the dust storms.

The novel deals with serious and intense issues: abuse, bullying, harassment, asthma. Friendship, spelling, and family supply the foundation for Avalyn and allow her to find the courage to speak up against the bullies and help Adam.… (més)