In the summer of 1983, June's father recently died of AIDS, and June's mom isn't just grieving, she's falling apart: The illness and death of June's dad's exacerbated her mom's mental illness. Now her mom won't leave the house, while her overwhelming fear of germs-she insists everything, including June, be cleaned with bleach-dominates their life. June, often hungry, only gets reliably fed when her Uncle Toby comes by with weekly groceries-an intrusion her mom is terrified of. When Ziggy moves in nearby with his grandmother, June covertly watches them, imagining what it would be like to live within the love of Nana Jean's home. June and Ziggy, both branded as outcasts in the neighborhood-Ziggy for his long hair and appearance, June because of her mother's strange behavior and how her dad died-become friends, often escaping into a shared world of their imaginations. For June, this is respite from her increasingly desperate situation at home. For Ziggy, it's respite from uncertainty: His mom is struggling, too, with a boyfriend who hits her whom she can't bring herself to leave. A book filled with pain is also marked by the resilience of June and Ziggy (both white), and the welcome, necessary relief of adults who figure out that they need to step up and step in. (Ages 9-12)

A 2020 National Book Award Long List Selection
A Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2020
A Reading Group Choices Best Book of 2020 
A Mighty Girl Best Book of 2020

In a stunning novel set in the 1980s, a girl with heavy secrets awakens her sleepy street to the complexities of love and courage.

It’s the summer of ’83 on Trowbridge Road, and June Bug Jordan is hungry. Months after her father’s death from complications from AIDS, her mother has stopped cooking and refuses to leave the house, instead locking herself away to scour at the germs she believes are everywhere. June Bug threatens this precarious existence by going out into the neighborhood, gradually befriending Ziggy, an imaginative boy who is living with his Nana Jean after experiencing troubles of his own. But as June Bug’s connection to the world grows stronger, her mother’s grows more distant — even dangerous — pushing June Bug to choose between truth and healing and the only home she has ever known.

Trowbridge Road paints an unwavering portrait of a girl and her family touched by mental illness and grief. Set in the Boston suburbs during the first years of the AIDS epidemic, the novel explores how a seemingly perfect neighborhood can contain restless ghosts and unspoken secrets. Written with deep insight and subtle lyricism by acclaimed author Marcella Pixley, Trowbridge Road demonstrates our power to rescue one another even when our hearts are broken.