The Strongest Heart

Thirteen-year-old Mohammed Mirza believes that rather than admitting he’s struggling, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t care about anything—neither his unemployed Pakistani American father’s untreated paranoid schizophrenia, nor his white-cued scientist mother, who has abandoned the family for work in Greece. Then Abbu and Mo move from New York City to Houston, a change that prompts an extreme perspective shift for Mo. Now cohabitating with Abbu’s widowed sister, Naila Phupo, and her son, Rayyan, also 13, Mo feels like he’s seeing how “normal people” live for the first time. Because, to Mo, nothing about his life with Abbu is normal. “This is the story of the boy and the monster,” Faruqi (the Holidays and Celebrations with Yasmin series) writes in a prologue, immediately setting the stage for this intensely gripping story in which Mo learns more about his father—and himself—and comes to terms with how Abbu’s mental illness affects their life and their relationship. Organic details about living with a mentally ill parent, informed by Faruqi’s own childhood, as addressed in an author’s note, make for a powerful and revealing read. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)