Ten-year-old Tae Kwon Do blue belt and budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps a "Confidential" notebook for his top-secret scientific discoveries. And he's found something totally top secret. The grandpa he's never met, who his mom refuses to talk about or see, is an expert mineral collector and lives nearby! Secretly, Brendan visits Ed DeBose, whose skin is pink, not brown like Brendan's, his dad's, or that of Grampa Clem's, who recently died. Brendan sets out to find the reason behind Ed's absence, but what he discovers can't be explained by science, and now he wishes he'd never found him at all. . . . "From the Hardcover edition." Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Gr 4 6 Brendan Buckley is fascinated by rocks and minerals. While at the mall with his grandmother, he comes upon a mineral show and begins talking to an older man who's the president of the local society. Brendan wants to join, but when his grandmother, Gladys, sees them together, she drags him away. It turns out that Ed DeBose is the grandfather he's never met. Ed and Brendan's mom are white; his dad and Gladys are black, and Brendan has grown up as a black boy. No one in his family will talk about the man, especially his mom, who grows furious whenever her father's name is mentioned. So Brendan decides to find Ed and ask him what happened and to do it without anyone in his family finding out. This is an absorbing look at a 10-year-old boy who has never had to deal with race and prejudice, who collides into years of anger and hurt in his family and must create a new identity for himself. Although the story occasionally veers into sentimentality, Frazier writes affectingly about what being biracial means in 21st-century America. Walter Minkel, New York Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Mixed-race Brendan Buckley is fascinated by science, and he likes to find the answers to questions that he poses in his notebook. Brendan finds that life isn't alwaus easily explained, however, after he meets his grandfather for the first time at a rock club meeting. Brendan's white grandfather has been estranged from Brendan's mother since her marriage to an African American. Despite Brendan's mixed parentage, he bonds with his grandfather through their shared interest in rock collecting, and they continue to meet secretly until Brendan's mother finds out. It takes time and a serious accident for Brendan's grandfather to come to his senses and reunite with his family. By frequently lightening her tone, Frazier delivers her messages without using an overly heavy hand. Brendan is a real kid with a passion for science and also a willingness to push his parents' rules; he's not just a placard for the author's central message. Morning, Todd. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.