Under the Light of Fireflies
An action-packed, heartfelt coming-of-age story, Lee Sanders’s novel Under the Light of Fireflies is set during an eventful summer.
In the summer of 1981, twelve-year-old Noah expects his biggest concerns to be Little League, his crush, and the bullies around town. But when a tiger escapes the zoo and finds him and another boy in the park one night, Noah’s summer takes a turn. His amnesia after the accident, combined with the town’s obsession with the incident, alienates Noah from his peers. With his old friends not around, he falls in with a new crowd—the one that used to bully him, whose members have unexpected ties to Noah’s deceased father. As he struggles with his father’s recent passing and his own accident, Noah searches for the right path.
The novel blends the big life issues Noah has to face with his everyday concerns. Noah, recovering from a traumatic injury and trying to remember just what happened to him, tries to seem cool in front of older kids. The pranks they pull, questions of popularity, and middle school crushes help Noah comprehend more serious issues too.
As the boys bike around town, their conversations with one another are short and to the point. At times, the story slows down so that Noah can describe the woods around his grandmother’s house or the fireflies lighting up the park at night. These pauses highlight Noah’s growth, coming at points when he realizes he misjudged others or when he reconnects with his family.
A boy learns to accept the unpredictability of life and finds his own sense of self in the transformative novel Under the Light of Fireflies.
Reviewed by
Julia Dillman
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