Not on Fifth Street

Pete and Gus have been best friends forever, as brothers sometimes are. But they are as different as summer and winter. Gus is book smart, poetic, and romantic. Pete is down-to-earth and mechanical. A warm January creates flooding in their town of Ironton, Ohio, and when relentless rains follow, it is a recipe for disaster. While this is happening, the boys have a falling out over a girl that threatens to destroy their relationship. When Father chooses to take Gus with him to fight the flooding, his choice drives the wedge further between the boys. The family is separated, the waters of the mighty Ohio continue to rise, and the boys question whether anything will ever return to normal.

Author Kathy Wiechman has written a thrilling rendition of the worst flood in the Ohio River valley and how it affected thousands. This well-researched book also uses family stories as the basis for her fictional version, and this gives her novel a verisimilitude often missing from middle-grade literature. Her writing is crisp, clean, and filled with wonderful fresh metaphors. This book deserves a much wider audience than its intended middle-graders. Do not miss this one.