Imagine that I’m going to tell you a story about pizza. This pizza starts out in a kitchen, it’s dirtier than most places to cook that you’ve seen, but it gets the job done. The person who works in this kitchen is quite the character. They’ve also got a family who is going through some challenging times that are firmly in the vein of realistic fiction. Having said all of that, is my story more about the pizza, the family, or the place where it’s cooked? Far Out! is mglit that has a similar problem. Its cover hooks you with the 1960s-styled couple of teenagers who are sitting on a wall at night. The girl is using a magnifying glass to examine a rock and the boy is looking towards the sky, presumably for UFOs.
It’s not that Far Out! is a bad book, it’s just that the cover, as well as the liner notes, don’t acknowledge the weight of the book’s minor plots. MJ Crook is our titular teen girl and she lives in a small Texas town during the 1960s Space Race. UFO interest, as well as their paranoia, is running high and Totter, Texas is having a festival to welcome any aliens who want to make themselves known. Her family is helping organize the festival. It’s a down-home, small-city type of celebration that’s more about communities getting together rather than actually welcoming little green men.
That’s a good thing because the night before the event is supposed to start the iconic and authentic, meteorite that belongs to one of the town’s residents goes missing. MJ’s grandmother, Mimi turns out to be the main suspect in the theft and it’s not looking good for her. The meteorite turns up in Mimi’s shed and she’s not able to clearly answer the questions from the police. MJ is holding firm to the belief that her grandmother is innocent. She follows a small-town circuit of the usual suspects, questioning all of those in Mimi’s circles to see if anyone can shed light on what’s going on.
Meanwhile, the festival is still happening in a couple of days and MJ’s family is far from centered. The meteorite that was once found, now goes missing again and Mimi is put into jail. As the story proceeds, Mimi’s diagnosis with dementia becomes the main thrust of what’s happening. MJ is concerned about her grandmother and does everything that she can do to comfort her and decrease her confusion.
An mglit book on dementia is a tough sell. Author Anne Bustard’s earlier book Blue Skies, had a similar subject in that it dealt with loss and the challenging times of a young girl moving past the loss of a parent. Far Out! will seem like a bait and switch to most mglit readers. They’ll come to the book expecting a story that’s borne of UFOs but be greeted with a whodunit caper with a side order of dementia.
It’s not that mglit audiences won’t read a story about dementia, but it’s certainly not going to be one of the first books that they pick up. But tricking them into reading something where dementia is one of the main undercurrents won’t do any book any favors. Those readers, who have experienced someone in their life with dementia and appreciate a gentle, folksy mystery, will read Far Out! and completely identify with the characters. However, I suspect that the number of mglit readers who fall into that category aren’t that numerous, thus the side approach that was attempted with UFOs.
Far Out! is by Anne Bustard and is available on Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
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