Hazel says no A novel

With humor and heart, Berger Gross introduces readers to Hazel Greenberg Blum and her family. The four of them have moved from Brooklyn to rural Maine after dad Gus Blum accepts a professorship at Riverburg College. On Hazel's first day of school, her principal propositions her, setting off a chain of events that will affect the family in ways both unfair and fortunate. Claire, Hazel's mother, is immediately on the offensive, while Gus uses his connections at the college to search for justice. Wolf, Hazel's little brother, is trying to adjust to his new school and make a name for himself in that season's play, but the principal's daughter is also in the cast. The community rallies around their beloved administrator, further distancing the Blums from their old, safe life in the city, and things get even worse when Gus is reviled after making a gauche comment while teaching. But through it all, Hazel continues to stand up for herself. Each family member has their own point of view, and readers will root for all of them. Eleven-year-old Wolf is particularly witty as he inserts himself into the adults' conversations. Suggest this gem to readers of Family Family (2024), by Laurie Frankel.

A high school senior is propositioned by her principal on the first day of school, and she says no. For Hazel Blum, newly transplanted with her family from Brooklyn to Riverburg, Maine, there is a before and there is an after. The watershed is the moment when the principal of her new high school closes his office door, begins stroking her leg, and says "Every year I choose one student to have sex with. This year, I pick you." Through the emotional turmoil of the moment and all her fears and worries and stress about the power that this man has over her life and her future college acceptances, Hazel says no. The resulting story is one that covers the highs and lows of the following year--the accusations, the denials, the embarrassment, the investigation and all the uproar it causes to her and her family: her mother, Claire, a former clothing designer trying to get her inspiration back; her father, Gus, a college professor with a new job who's trying to do his best after a poorly planned first lecture; and her brother, Wolf, a sixth grader who is desperate to make friends and, hopefully, be cast in the middle school's production ofCharlotte's Web while dealing with being the only Jewish kid in the school. But the turmoil grows ever bigger, involving people from the Blums' new small-town community and beyond. This is a book that doesn't shy away from the emotional trauma created by terrible situations, but it also embraces the joy and light that can be found in moments both big and small. It explores guilt, victim-blaming in its many shapes, and the stress caused by moving from a big city to a small town and having to navigate the dense, interconnected web of relationships in that community. An engaging, stressful, glorious examination of the aftermath of an awful event. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.