Book Review: Scattergood by H. M. Bouwman

Publisher’s description
In rural Iowa in 1941, twelve-year-old Peggy’s quiet life is turned upside down by refugee arrivals, first love, and a heartbreaking diagnosis.
Growing up a farm girl, Peggy’s life has never been particularly exciting. But a lot changes in 1941. Her friend Joe starts acting strange around her. The Quaker hostel nearby reopens to house Jewish refugees from Europe, including a handsome boy named Gunther and a troubled professor of nothing. And her cousin and best friend, Delia, is diagnosed with leukemia—and doesn’t even know it.
Peggy has always been rational. She may not be able to understand poetry and speak in metaphors like Delia, but she has to believe she can find a way out of this mess, for both of them. There has to be a cure. And yet the more she tries to control, the more powerless she feels. She can’t make Gunther see her the way she sees him. She can’t help the Professor find his missing daughter. She’s tired of feeling young and naive, but growing up is proving even worse.
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A historical coming-of-age novel that feels as alive and present as today, Scattergood offers even readers familiar with World War II a fascinating new glimpse of history, far from the battlefields of Europe and the shores of New York City. H.M. Bouwman presents a raw and unapologetic snapshot of a girl battling her own shortcomings and the random nature of life.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
Amanda’s thoughts
Life in West Branch, Iowa has always been pretty routine for Peggy. Same chores and responsibilities, same (sometimes annoying) neighbors and friends, same everything. But in June of 1941, everything changes. Peggy’s cousin and best friend, Delia, is diagnosed with leukemia and, though no one will really talk to Peggy directly about it much (and everyone has been instructed to not tell Delia what she has, letting her labor under the impression she’s so sick because of being anemic), she overhears the adults talking about Delia having maybe six months. Through Scattergood, the local hostel where war refugees are staying, Peggy meets new people. Her world expands to include Gunther, a 16-year-old from Germany, Professor Lohman, a cantankerous chess-playing refugee from Holland, and Camilla, a teenage volunteer about to head to college. On top of the new bad news and the new people (who are tied to the endless bad news of the war), Peggy’s mother is acting weird. And Ida Jean only ever wants to talk about or attract boys. And why is Peggy’s lifelong friend Joe being weird to her now, too? It’s a lot.
Peggy feels like there’s just so much going on and that this is not the life that she or others around her should be having. That’s a hard realization: life is not fair, life is stressful, life is upsetting. An extremely logical person who loves math, Peggy feels like she should be able to just fix things, especially for Delia. After all, Delia has six months, but if Peggy can somehow make her well in that time, boom! Fixed! That kind of hope can only last so long, though, even when you’re 13. Peggy begins to feel hopeless, eventually even abandoning the idea that maybe prayer will help. The terrible realities of loss are all around her. The hard lessons just keep coming. We can’t control things. We make the best of what we have. We make mistakes. We hurt people. We disappoint people, ourselves. We love and lose and grieve and sacrifice and make do and live, if we’re lucky.
Peggy’s many feelings are palpable. Readers will hope for good outcomes, while understanding that those who have lost everything from war and those dealing with a terminal diagnosis will not likely end the story in a good place. Readers will cringe as Peggy makes bold (and sometimes bad) choices while also relating to her need to speak her mind, to act out. This is not a hopeful book, but it is a book that will tell readers, look, I know sometimes things are awful. This is how we get through them: we just keep going. Everyone is doing their best, and sometimes that’s not very good, but it’s real. This well-written look at one farm girl’s eventful few months reminds us that we all have stories and challenges and that unexpected events and connections teach us things, even if they’re lessons and truths we’d rather not know.
Review copy (ARC) courtesy of the publisher
ISBN-13: 9780823457755
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 01/21/2025
Age Range: 10 – 12 Years
Filed under: Book Reviews

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on BlueSky at @amandamacgregor.bsky.social.
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