In rur­al Iowa in 1941, twelve-year-old Peggy’s qui­et life is turned upside down by refugee arrivals, first love, and a heart­break­ing diag­no­sis.

Grow­ing up a farm girl, Peggy’s life has nev­er been par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing. But a lot changes in 1941. Her friend Joe starts act­ing strange around her. The Quak­er hos­tel near­by reopens to house Jew­ish refugees from Europe, includ­ing a hand­some boy named Gun­ther and a trou­bled pro­fes­sor of noth­ing. And her cousin and best friend, Delia, is diag­nosed with leukemia — and doesn’t even know it. 

Peg­gy has always been ratio­nal. She may not be able to under­stand poet­ry and speak in metaphors like Delia, but she has to believe she can find a way out of this mess, for both of them. There has to be a cure. And yet the more she tries to con­trol, the more pow­er­less she feels. She can’t make Gun­ther see her the way she sees him. She can’t help the Pro­fes­sor find his miss­ing daugh­ter. She’s tired of feel­ing young and naive, but grow­ing up is prov­ing even worse. 

A his­tor­i­cal com­ing-of-age nov­el that feels as alive and present as today, Scat­ter­good offers even read­ers famil­iar with World War II a fas­ci­nat­ing new glimpse of his­to­ry, far from the bat­tle­fields of Europe and the shores of New York City. H.M. Bouw­man presents a raw and unapolo­getic snap­shot of a girl bat­tling her own short­com­ings and the ran­dom nature of life.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Mid­dle-Grade Book of the Year
A Junior Library Guild Gold Stan­dard Selection