The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy

Gr 3-7–It is well documented that repeated head trauma received in sports such as football can cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disorder that affects many athletes for the rest of their lives. The condition is dramatized in this touching book chronicling the upended lives of Louise and Winston Volpe. Their father, Lenny Volpe, a former quarterback for the fictional football team the Chicago Horribles, had the disease and disappeared from home one day, never to be found. The children are left to their own devices by their hardworking mother, a real estate agent, and grief over the loss of their father and husband remains unspoken among the three of them. Louise dedicates her efforts to finding a cure for CTE with her science club while simultaneously trying to save a captive bear, and Winston (along with his fellow tuba-playing friend, Frenchie) gets caught up in the mysterious behavior of their middle school teachers. The chapters alternate between Louise and Winston, creating two subplots that dovetail at the end of the book. Readers who have family members with chronic illnesses, or who have lost a parent, will relate to the story of this brother-sister duo who work through the grief in the best ways they can.