Typical teenager Kit lives a happy, normal life of friends,boys, and loving family. She and her younger brother, Buddy, are incrediblyclose despite their eight-year age difference, bonded by a shared love ofbaseball and math. But when Buddy is taken suddenly by cancer, Kit and herparents struggle to survive. Told in spare, lyrical verse, Rubber Houses isa powerful novel that perfectly captures the intense and excruciating painof the loss of a loved one, and the slow but gradual hope of living againand finding one's way back home.