Sorry for Your Loss

By Jessie Ann Foley

‘Sorry for Your Loss’, first-place winner of the 2020-2021 Maine North Star YA Award, has been on my list since it first arrived at my library. I listened to the audio version, which sometimes helps to immerse me in the story, and moves any story along for me when I listen while driving, working, cleaning, etc.

Pup Flanagan is a teen who has tragically lost a brother, one of his seven siblings. I lost a family member at a younger age than Pup, but experienced many of the same feelings he expressed, though Jessie Ann Foley worded them expertly, and I didn’t have the words I needed to explain all those feelings at nine years old.

Pup has been finding his way, as we all do, through the grief of losing his brother and operating under the day-to-day pressures of life as a high school student, with the stress of grades and peer relationships, as well as family issues.

Like me, Pup had a teacher who was instrumental in his grief process and supportive in ways he needed. He found a new way of expressing himself and something he was good at, almost by accident, when he was required to turn in a school project.

Pup found his own strengths, and also gained confidence, friends, the respect of his family…and well…you go find out what else. I love this story and see why it won the North Star YA Award.

I’ll be recommending ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ to teens in my library!