Review Detail

Having been in a blended family, I could relate to the struggles Frankie Joe encountered in adjusting to radical changes. Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe is uprooted from his life in the trailer park in Texas when fate intervenes, his mother goes to jail, and he is forced to move in with his father and his “other” family in Illinois. Prior to the move, he never really knew his father or step-mother, and he didn’t know he had four half-brothers until he arrived at his new home.

Frankie Joe is not happy in his new life, and why would he be? He is taunted and made fun of by others, even one of his new half-brothers, and he is having trouble at school. Able to endure only so much, he makes a secret plan to make money and escape back to Texas by creating Frankie Joe’s freaky Fast Delivery Service. Frankie Joe shows what it means to be resilient, and his courage and strength serve him well, especially with a particularly difficult betrayal towards the end.

I could empathize with the feeling out of place and uncertainty with everything around you as Frankie Joe did. There are real challenges that children and young adults have to contend with and this story does a nice job revealing those challenges in an ultimately uplifting and positive way.