By Byron Graves
Heartdrum / HarperCollins, 2026
337 pages
978-0-06-316042-2
Age 13 and older
Bryce’s mom has struggled with alcohol and holding down a job since his dad’s death several years earlier. When things blow up with her latest boyfriend, she takes off, leaving Bryce and an unpaid motel bill behind. Bryce (Ojibwe) goes to his paternal grandparents’ trailer home on the Wolf Creek Reservation in Minnesota, where he stays for the summer. Grateful to leave behind the Green Lake Reservation, where he had been lonely and bullied, Bryce reunites with his grade school friends, Robbie and Mikayla. Bryce’s grandma is also grateful for his return and appreciates Bryce’s support as his hospitalized grandfather’s cancer has entered end stage. While he’s happy to be with supportive friends and family, Bryce is also overwhelmed, depressed, and anxious. Determined not to start self-harming again, he focuses on learning to skateboard. He is motivated by spending time with Robbie, who teaches him, and by his budding crush on Mikayla, an accomplished skater. An end-of-summer skating contest pushes Bryce to practice daily, and his newfound intensity provides an escape from worrying about his now-incarcerated mother, the decline of his grandfather, and the threat of an impending oil pipeline through the reservation. The emotional arc of Bryce’s grief and sadness is matched by his athletic growth as a skater and through his relationships on the reservation. The palpability of teen life—acne, junk food cravings, music playlists—is skillfully articulated in tandem with the tender vulnerabilities and awakenings of a young Ojibwe man. ©2026 Cooperative Children’s Book Center