Five Under the Porch: 3

He was eight. They were rude about it.Oscar Grubb is eight years old, the second-shortest kid in the third grade, banned from the science wing after a small volcano incident, and deposited twice a week into a recycling bin by a boy the size of a refrigerator. He is not brave. He is not tall. He is not particularly good at maths. He is simply trying to survive the ordinary indignities of being small in a world that keeps noticing.Then five creatures move in under his back porch.They are not magic. They cannot stretch him an inch, lend him courage, or repair his grasp of long division. What they can do is convene in his laundry basket every Tuesday, argue about him at the top of their lungs, and present him with a short, devastating list of the four things he is doing wrong.All four are true.It is the rudest thing that has ever happened to Oscar Grubb. It is also the beginning of everything.What follows is six school years, one goat, ninety-two very short chapters, and twenty-one pictures. A story that refuses to hurry, yet never wastes a line. A novel that knows the precise weight of a single honest sentence handed to a boy who has never been allowed to write his own.At the end, Oscar will hold a list of his own making.Ages 8-12. Illustrated. Unapologetically strange, fiercely kind, and quietly unforgettable.