Tumble & Blue

Beasley, Cassie. Tumble & Blue. 2017. 390p. ISBN 978-0-525-42844-2. Available at FIC BEA on the library shelves.

Blue Montgomery is a loser. Not in the metaphorical way, in the real world way of losing at everything. Blue always manages to lose any game or activity he participates in, even if it is a one-player game. His father, by contrast, is a winner and never loses. A car racer by profession, Blue’s father is always on the move, looking for another race. This year, however, he decides to drop off Blue at his grandmother’s house in on the edge of the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia. Abandoned in Murky Branch (population 340), Blue discovers that the Montgomerys have been cursed. An ancestor decades ago entered the swamp on a red moon and made a pact with a strange golden alligator named Munch. But the wish went wrong. Half of the Montgomerys are blessed with abilities or talents that make them the envy of the world. The other half? Their talents are deadly, obnoxious, or, like Blue and losing, completely dangerous to their lives.

Now the red moon arises again, and Montgomerys from all over the world are congregating once again in the hopes of being the one to whom Munch will give a wish. Blue finds himself in the frenzy that plagues his grandmother’s house as more and more relatives arrive. Trying to escape them all, he runs into Tumble, a girl who has moved down the street. Her parents are renting a small cabin but Tumble has decided to continue living in their RV. Upon seeing Blue, Tumble makes the decision to save him from his curse. For, you see, Tumble herself follows Maximal Star’s advice to always be the hero. Let the heroing begin!

As they learn more about the curse, Tumble and Blue realize that it will not be as easy as they thought to rid Blue of his bad fate. Great-grandmother Myrtle Montgomery is the only one that knows exactly when the red moon will occur, and she’s making everyone entertain her before she tells her handpicked choice the time. With no hope of being picked, Blue must discover how he can transform himself from a loser to a winner without depending on a mythical golden alligator. But what if that alligator really did exist?

Lyrical and beautifully written, Blue and Tumble’s adventures through the small town of Murky Branch show that fate is never fixed and can always be altered, with a little help from friends and family.