The Blue Star

Eight years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious ten-year-old at the heart of Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in a tender and wise story of young love on the brink of World War Two.

Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw’s girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie’s heart in Bucky’s absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man’s emotions a grown man’s gravity. When Bucky returns to Aliceville a fallen hero, Jim finds himself adrift in a once-familiar town where everything, including Chrissie, seems to be changing.  

With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a modern classic, Tony Earley has fashioned a nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time–making it feel even more real than our own day. This is a moving story of discovery, loss, and growing up, showing again that Tony Earley’s writing “radiates with a largeness of heart” (Esquire).