“It’s funny how the simplest thing, like riding your bike to the park the way you’ve done nearly every summer afternoon since you ditched your training wheels, can suddenly become so complicated.  If you let it.  If you start to think too hard about things.” Trent pg. 5 – Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff
 
Trent is ready to make a new start in Middle School this year, thinking back what could be worse than fifth grade?   Sure there were his friends and baseball, Trent loves baseball, but then there was the accident, and suddenly it felt like all his friends, the whole town even, hated him, and well, he just didn’t feel like playing baseball right then either.  Like a fly ball to left-center on a cloudless day, Trent felt lost in the sun.  Unfortunately, it’s clear on the first day of school that sixth grade is not going to be the new start he wants.  His teacher Ms. Emerson, the “wrinkled old croon”, is clearly out to get him; his gym teacher, Mr Gorman, doesn’t seem to like him and he’s been befriended by Fallon Little, one of the strangest kids in the sixth grade.  He also thinks a lot about the accident, and everyday things like going to school, visiting his dad, playing baseball and being a friend get pretty difficult.
 
If Trent could stop and listen, and let in those around him, he may find some unlikely friends routing for him to win.  Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff, is both a heart-breaking and a heart-warming story about a young boys struggle with tragedy and anger.

Also check out Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff.