The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins

 

Christopher Hurley, known as Christy, is a traveller.  He loves the outside life, going from town to town with his family.  His group includes his grandparents, his aunt and uncle, his cousins of whom Martin is his best friend and his Da.  He never knew his mother as she died in childbirth.

The group knows it is time for Martin and Christy to take instruction and their First Communion.  That means the group needs to stay in a town for much longer than normal and the boys are actually sent to school for the first time.  Christy is a huge reader and loves the school while he also meets a girl who gives him feelings he has never had before.  Yet there is a mystery he wants to solve.

He found a picture of his mother but she is holding a baby.  If she died in his childbirth, how is that possible?  is this another child, a sibling?  Is it him?  Why won't his father ever talk about his mother? 

Jeanine Cummins is an American author whose best known work is American Dirt.  In this novel, she is able to get inside the heart and mind of a growing boy whose life is different from those around him and holds a secret that even he doesn't know.  It is the best coming of age novel I've read and I've enjoyed all of Cummins' work that I've read.  Christy is a lovely boy who loves his family and life but is intellectually curious and determined to find the truth.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.