All Rise For The Honorable Perry T. Cook

Junior Library Guild Selection * Kids’ Indie Next List Pick

From Leslie Connor, award-winning author of Waiting for Normal and Crunch, comes a soaring and heartfelt story about love, forgiveness, and how innocence makes us all rise up. All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook is a powerful story, perfect for fans of Wonder and When You Reach Me.

Eleven-year-old Perry was born and raised by his mom at the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility in tiny Surprise, Nebraska. His mom is a resident on Cell Block C, and so far Warden Daugherty has made it possible for them to be together. That is, until a new district attorney discovers the truth—and Perry is removed from the facility and forced into a foster home.

When Perry moves to the “outside” world, he feels trapped. Desperate to be reunited with his mom, Perry goes on a quest for answers about her past crime. As he gets closer to the truth, he will discover that love makes people resilient no matter where they come from . . . but can he find a way to tell everyone what home truly means?

• A Unique Found Family: Perry’s home is a correctional facility, and his family includes the kind, funny, and sometimes lost residents of Blue River who have watched him grow up.
• An Unbreakable Mother-Son Bond: When a new district attorney separates Perry from his incarcerated mother, he’ll do anything to find his way back to her.
• The True Meaning of Home: A heartfelt and thought-provoking story that challenges readers to ask what makes a family and where we truly belong.
• A Fight for Justice: To reunite his family, eleven-year-old Perry must investigate his mother’s past crime and prove to the world that love is more powerful than any prison wall.