Except she can't play a solo performance without something disastrous happening and no one seems to hear her when she talks about how nervous she is.
His best friend Josefina Ramos is also counting down until the start of January when her life could change forever-that's when she has her big cello audition at the prestigious music academy Maple Hill. Since a workplace injury disabled his dad and forced the family to move from their home into the apartment complex across the street, Ronny's been learning all sorts of things-like what letters marked with Final Notice means and that banks can take cars away for being behind on payments. That's how much Ronny needs by January 4th to make to keep his family's only car from getting repossessed. (Nov.Told in alternating points of view, this middle grade novel, following best friends Ronny and Jo, is about anxiety, being in over your head, and learning to accept help-even if you don't know how to ask Eight hundred seventy-eight dollars.
Cued-white jokester Ronny, who has ADHD and excels in a Learning Support classroom, narrates in run-on sentences sprinkled with humor, while direct yet expressive description from Mexican American Jo matches the lyrical simplicity of her favorite Bach preludes. A rosy tone and wildly supportive community match the holiday setting, while distinct character voices sell the dual-POV narrative. But making $878 for a car payment is harder than they realized, and another complication looms: if Jo transfers to orchestra school, Ronny worries that they’ll no longer have each other. Spurred by post-Christmas deadlines, the neighbors team up to both earn money for Ronny’s family and conquer Jo’s stage fright by entertaining local nursing home residents. His best friend Jo Ramos’s impending orchestra school audition also feels like a kind of “final notice”-an essential step toward overcoming performance anxiety and achieving her professional cello-playing dreams. Since his father’s workplace injury, seventh grader Ronny Russo’s family has been experiencing financial precarity, and now-according to a letter threatening “legal action”-they might lose their car, which they need for his mother’s job. Landis ( It’s the End of the World as I Know It) spotlights variations on overwhelm in a feel-good story with Hallmark Christmas movie vibes.
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