13 Dec / Miracle on 49th Street by Mike Lupica
As much as this time of the year makes me sooooo cranky with too much focus on the frantic buy-buy-buy messages all around us, it also makes me a total mushpot for happy-ending stories.
With all the ‘right’ conditions – wandering New York City listening on iPod to the 12-year-old narrator convincingly performed by Michele Santopietro, passing Rockefeller Center a few times, seeing the endless reminders of the holiday season – this one turned out to be quite the effective weepie.
Meet Molly Parker, recently relocated from London to Boston, where her mother was supposed to get better from cancer. But Jen Parker didn’t make it, and now Molly’s lost the only family she’s ever known. She’s determined to track down Jen’s college sweetheart, Josh Cameron, who since their bitter parting 12 years ago, has become a world-famous Boston Celtic. He’s the model superstar athlete with the winning smile, the shy fingers through his hair thing, the friendly charm that everyone loves.
He’s understandably doubtful at first to learn he’s got a daughter he never knew about. While Molly never expected him to welcome her with open arms, she also never wanted to find out what Jen always knew: “The only two things [Josh] cared about were basketball and himself.” But something tells her to keep trying … and with the help of Josh’s “indispensable” live-in housekeeper who knows Josh better than anyone including his sorry self, Molly finds a way to make that miracle happen one wintry afternoon on 49th Street in New York City.
Listening to the story with my son’s tween ears, the schmaltz factor works fine, even appreciated given this time of the year. But I’ll have to confess that ‘bah-humbug’ would occasionally surface and I would get twinges of utter annoyance at the no-nonsense-tough-loving housekeeper character (and she has to be from Harlem, too?) who smacks too much of Scarlett’s Mammy. And the late Jen Parker who couldn’t beat her monstrous disease comes off as too much of a (flat) perfect saint.
But ’tis the season, and as miraculous stories go, the happy-ending factor on this one rivals its near-namesake, 15 blocks south. Mike Lupica is always dependable for keeping the pages turning (or iPod chugging), as both my young children will attest … so here’s to some sappy good cheer this season.
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2006