Grover G. Graham and Me

ISBN 0385322771

Novel for ages 9 to 13

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Awards and Reviews

Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Children's Choice Masterlist

Virginia Young Readers Masterlist for schools

"The relationship between Ben and Grover...is warm, humorous, and illuminating"

- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Emotionally satisfying"

--Kirkus

The Story

Eleven-year-old Ben Watson has been shuffled around from foster home to foster home in the last six years. He's gotten used to blanking folks out, leaving them behind, watching out for himself. In his eighth foster home, Ben finds himself starting to care about Grover, another foster child about fourteen months old. Grover was abandoned by his teenage mother, just like Ben was. When Grover's mother tries to take back her child, Ben is convinced she will abandon the baby again. So when he gets a chance to escape from the system, Ben takes it. And he takes Grover with him. Writing Games

1. Ben compares himself and the other foster kids to prickly gumballs, the pesky, unwanted seed balls from sweetgum trees. If you were a plant, what plant would you be? A tall pine? A daisy? A cactus? List traits you and this plant have in common. How is Ben surprised by the sweetgum tree in the end?

2. Ben does something he knows is wrong (kidnaps a baby) for what he believes are the right reasons (he fears the baby is being neglected). Have you ever been in a situation like that, where you did something wrong for the right reasons? Or did something right for the wrong reasons? How did everything turn out?