Hummingbird Season
by Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic
Intermediate    Bloomsbury    272 pp.
2/24    9781547612741    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781547612758    $12.59

Lucianovic documents the life of her protagonist during COVID-19 when “every day / everything / is the same boring same.” Archie’s father works from his bedroom, his mother from the kitchen, and his older brother is still allowed to play outside with friends (some unmasked). Archie wonders, “I don’t know / how you can be lonely / when you’re stuck / in your house / with a family / who has no / choice but to be / with you / but I know / that’s the way it is.” COVID has created a near-dystopian world, and the boring ordinariness of Archie’s life belies the dangers of a time-warped existence where “a week feels much longer / than it did before. / A day takes / forever to end. / And time feels like it’s made of worksheets.” Archie simply wants connection—with parents, brother, classmates. The hummingbirds outside his window represent that, with their happy, friendly, “cozy” whirring-wing sounds reminding him of family moments he misses. Lucianovic portrays Archie’s interior world in straightforward first-person verse that effectively captures the voice of an elementary school boy living through extraordinary times.

From the January/February 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.