This Newbery Honor Book tells the story of two friends who have been cutting school together to hang out with the kindly janitor in the basement of the school. Both have troubles: Buddy has no family and lives on the streets, struggling to take care of other, younger homeless kids; Junior Brown has an overbearing mother, a mostly absent father, and a piano teacher with some pretty serious mental health issues. Their stories come together in an emotional way, which helps this dark story not go over the edge in to hopelessness. ( )

Read for the Children's book group at the Collins Branch Library (Cambridge)

I found the beginning of the book disorienting: a long scene in a secret basement room of a school, where two students - Buddy Clark and Junior Brown - are hiding away with a teacher-turned-janitor, Mr. Pool. They have created a haven for themselves there, complete with a recreation of the solar system, plus a tenth planet (the titular Planet of Junior Brown)(this was back when there were nine planets. RIP Pluto).

Buddy's story is a bit more straightforward than Junior's: homeless since the age of 9, he has learned how to get by on the streets of New York, receiving help from older boys and helping younger ones in turn.

Junior lives with his asthmatic mother; his father works in New Jersey and comes home (some) weekends (or not - do we ever actually see him, or is he a fiction?). Junior is supposedly a superb piano player, but again, we don't actually see him play; his piano at home has had all the strings removed, and he is forbidden to play the piano at his teacher Miss Peebs' house. (To complicate matters, Miss Peebs is a crazy hoarder; her insanity is immediately apparent to Buddy if not to Junior.)

Buddy and Junior's absences from school are eventually noticed, and Buddy helps Junior hide on one of his "planets," havens for homeless children.

Quotes

How come one boy was so different from another when they both hurt the same? Buddy wondered. (86)

...a planet of homeless children? (197) ( )

Plodding prose, I'll-defined characters, and too much weirdness that never pays off. I honestly have no idea how this won an award. ( )

Junior Brown is a sheltered three hundred pound boy with quite an imagination and his friend Buddy Clark have been avoiding their 8th grade classroom all semester….they spend much of their time in a small cellar room behind a mysterious wall where the janitor had been building a mobile of the solar system. The boys become fasinated and skip out on class to hear the many stories Mr. Pool has to share. His guidance and wisdom fills the young boys heads with fantasy and hope...Then one day, when in their ‘hide-out’ they get caught… what comes next is a beautiful story of a true friendship.