Nowhere Better Than Here
by Sarah Guillory
Intermediate, Middle School    Roaring Brook    256 pp.
9/22    9781250824264    $16.99
e-book ed.  9781250824257    $9.99

Less extreme than the dramatic hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters occurring around the globe, the weather crisis affecting this book’s fictional place reveals a slower dismantling of land and its inhabitants. Jillian Robichaux lives in the Cajun community of Boutin in the wetlands of Louisiana. Gradually, coastal erosion is destroying the town: the bridge that connects Boutin to the mainland is unsafe; the school cannot be repaired; and businesses, homes, and even a cemetery are now underwater. The future is clear: families must leave. For Jillian, the inevitable exodus feels like an abandonment of her entire culture and her definition of who she is. Guillory’s well-crafted setting includes a cuisine of jambalaya, gumbo, and turtle sauce piquant; a sprinkling of French phrases; and Cajun names. The biggest loss, and the one developed most artfully, is the sense of community created in Boutin over generations. The townspeople nurture that history through their stories, which Jillian and her friends capture in an ambitious oral history project that preserves those memories. Jillian’s grief, and her trepidation about facing a now unmoored future, ring true and give the novel its heart, while the issues of preserving one’s environment and heritage, although strong, never overtake the narrative but offer readers much to ponder.

From the January/February 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.