Review from KLIATT
   An amazing book, especially since it is Crowley’s first book. The main character has Asperger’s syndrome, and I feel safer in the knowledge that Crowley’s own daughter has “a unique view of the world”; it is clear that she treats such a child with great love and respect.
   Merilee lives in a small town in west Texas named Jumbo. This place is filled with characters, and I do mean characters. One after the other colorful, outrageous, funny, loveable—there isn’t a dud among them. Crowley gets everything possible out of this place with spot-on dialogue and memorable images that come one after the other. Merilee is brilliant, she reads all the time and draws dragons in her notebook, but she needs her “very ordered existence,” e.g., a rigid schedule, and she doesn’t talk much and doesn’t let anyone get close to her…except maybe her mama. This changes when a poet and his young son come into town, and the little boy, Bis, follows Merilee around and becomes a part of her family’s life, because his father is a neglectful parent and alcoholic. It’s a lengthy story, but so many scenes are heart stopping, it doesn’t seem to be long. I predict this book will be treated seriously as one of the finest works in children’s literature to be published this year. -Claire Rosser

Review from VOYA
   Crowley's daughter, who has her own "unique view of the world," is the inspiration for this heart-stirring introduction to thirteen-year-old Merilee Monroe, a girl whose life revolves around keeping her V.O.E.-Very Ordered Existence-intact. Her V.O.E. has become increasingly difficult to maintain with mentally disabled, eight-year-old Biswick O'Conner following her everywhere. Folks in Jumbo, Texas-population 1,258-once thought Merilee might be a genius because she could quote Shakespeare at age three, but Merilee knows that there is a "thin line between genius and bottom-barrel stupidness."
   Crowley's first-person narrative opens wide Merilee's frenetic yet very astute mind. Sensing the internal battles that her daughter is fighting, Mama gives Merilee a journal to release her bottled up words, but what flows out are detailed drawings of dragons of every shape and style. Secondary character development in this small-town yarn is impressive, with bad-tempered Grandma Birdy so real that one can almost feel the sharp edge of her words, which are tempered by theWest Texas, common-sense drawl of newcomer Veraleen and the unconditional quiet love of Uncle Dal. Merilee, who defines herself as having "some sort of qualitative umbrella, asparagus problem" might not always be understood, but she is loved, especially by Mama who makes sure that Merilee can spend a quiet afternoon in Mama's bookstore, reading Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene from the monthly box of classics specifically ordered for Merilee. Using one of Merilee's favorite words, this book is marvelous. Offer this gem to young teens who enjoyed Cynthia Lord's Rules (Scholastic, 2007) and Sarah Adams Kocha's The Boy Who Ate Stars (Simon & Schuster, 2006).-Ruth Cox Clark.