When Eddie Holloway woke up, he was ready for the best day of the summer. It was the one day he’d been waiting for, the big Beach Bash. Every year, he and his family would pack a cooler full of sandwiches, snacks, and soda, and head for the beach for an entire day of fun, sand, junk food, and fireworks. And it’s the culmination of his intricate plan.
You see, this summer Eddie had made a deal with his mother. He would do his own laundry all summer if he could have the freedom to relax and have fun with his friends. Not many 12-year-olds would come up with a deal like that, or make such a detailed plan for his laundry duties. But Eddie is not an ordinary kid.
For one thing, he’s got a real gift for gab and can talk your ear with lots of information and more than a few dad jokes to keep it entertaining. For another, he’s willing to go all in on a plan like his grand laundry scheme. It’s pretty brilliant of him to decide to not to laundry until he has to. He has been wearing every piece of clothing he has, including that ugly Christmas sweater, in order to get to the last day of his plan, the day of the Beach Bash, when his only article of clean clothing is his bathing suit. Which is perfect, right?
Except for that one thing he couldn’t plan for.
His mother.
When his mother finds out about Eddie’s grand plan, then it all comes crashing down. And by all crashing down, I mean the mountain of dirty laundry he had been piling in his closet, letting them build their stink until it was overwhelming. His mother did not believe in Eddie’s plan. She came up with a plan of her own—that he stay home from Beach Bash and do his laundry, even if it takes all day. His stepdad stands up for him and says that he’ll come back to take Eddie to the bash if he gets all his laundry done in time. But Eddie knows it will still take hours.
He’s on his second load in the washer when the power goes out, leaving him in the dark basement. When he goes upstairs, he finds out that it’s not just his house. It’s the whole neighborhood that has gone dark, or as dark as it can with the sun way up in the sky. He finds some other kids who are still around—his friend Xavier who was halfway through giving himself a haircut, Sonia who was about to win her video game, and the school’s best athlete Trey and his little sister Sage, who maybe reads minds.
The five of them spend the rest of the day together, eating all the junk food they can carry and later, when it’s getting dark and there is no one else around anywhere, find supplies for the night. They set up sleeping bags and flashlights, sleeping under the stars. No one has any cell phone service, so they don’t know what happened on the beach. And without power, there is no news, no internet, no television. And no one seems to be coming back from the beach, so even that next morning, it’s just the five of them.
What’s happening, and how can five kids survive it?
It’s the End of the World and I’m in My Bathing Suit is a fun apocalypse story for middle graders. Author Justin A. Reynolds brings a story with lots of action and a stellar narrator, just in time for summer vacation. The kids in this story are smart but they’re also willing to be there for each other, and it’s sweet to see them band together to try to figure out what’s going on.
I enjoyed reading this book, mostly because Eddie is such a compelling character. He has a way of drawing me into his conversation, his thoughts, his way of being in the world, and making me believe in him and cheering him on, whether it’s for his laundry insanity or his dream of talking to Ava Bustamante. Eddie is a lot of fun to hang out with, so while I’m not a big fan of apocalypse stores, I enjoyed this one a lot and think it would be a great book to pick up for any bored kids you know, looking for something to do this summer.
Galleys for It’s the End of the World and I’m in My Bathing Suit were provided by Scholastic Press, with many thanks.
