Stellar Planet Jupiter shines

Planet Jupiter book review 

and Interview with author Jane Kurtz

The brilliant cover of the book

Planet Jupiter by Jane Kurtz is a surprisingly realistic heartfelt family focused story.  It’s a great read with many life lessons both direct and indirect. Great read aloud too!

Clearly the theme of family is in all its forms, a chaotic, messy thing throughout the book. Including a central adoption that explores all readers definitions of family, the crucial role of supportive, adoptive and inclusive communities, while always focusing on the empowerments and the developments in the childhoods of the two main protagonist young girls, Edom and Jupiter.

 I especially love the chapter title inserts of theme fitting and chapter focused folk song lyrics that start each chapter. I also enjoy the commentary on locavores and the science of urban farming and urban legal weed/invasive species and landscaping elements. This book is brilliant in its artful wording leaving readers to be moved by its powerfully moving lessons and marvelous use of poetic yet direct language. 

I recently interviewed the author Jane Kurtz about her new and heart warming book, Planet Jupiter. The interview in its entirety is posted below.

Autor Jane Kurtz

How would you introduce your new book?

I think of it as a story of two girls who are both tough—so tough that they are sure they don’t need anyone—and how they gradually become rooted to each other and the Earth. In some ways, it’s like a modern The Secret Garden.

What was the inspiration for your new book planet Jupiter?

In the last ten years, I’ve spent a lot of time with families who’ve adopted kids from Ethiopia—because I grew up in Ethiopia, have written books set there, and still volunteer for a literacy project connecting Ethiopian children with books. Those families often asked me, “Are you ever going to have a character who has been adopted from Ethiopia?” Another inspiration: I heard an interview with a young musician who spent her childhood on the road, and it reminded me in some ways of my own adventuresome childhood moving between Ethiopia and the U.S.A. In fact, I’m somewhat addicted to travel. But these days I find myself more rooted than I ever expected to be, and my own yard is daily inspiration.

Why did you chose the setting?

I spent my eighth grade year in Pasadena, California, and there’s something about California Dreaming that calls to me, especially during the drippy days of Oregon, where I now live. I haven’t read many middle grade novels set on the West Coast, making use of the fascinating setting details of cities like Portland. I wanted kids to see themselves in the pages of my book, and those who haven’t been here need to see beyond Hollywood and Portlandia.

Explain the role of locavores and urban farming and foraging in the book.

In 2010, I wrote a book for American Girl about a girl who loves science and decides to save monarch butterflies. So when I moved to Portland, I decided to try my own hand at creating a Backyard Habitat, good for bees and birds and butterflies. Lots of people around here want to do their part to save the Earth, and a nonfiction book by another Portland author, The Soil Will Save Us, gave me sparks of hope about climate change and convinced me that what we do in our kitchens and yards and communities can help.

When I moved here, I told my sisters I was going to putter in my yard. One of them said, “You went from puttering to obsessed in two weeks flat.” Unlike Jupiter and Edom, I haven’t eaten a grasshopper. But I do forage in my yard most days.

Please Explain the following  quote: “ When you forage it connects you to something deep and real and old in yourself”. is this a metaphorical lesson of just an observation, both, something else?

As we narrow our views to little screens, I think something in us longs more than ever to be connected to the outside world, the life force pulsing even in the middle of streets and sidewalks. Humans began their lives foraging. Jupiter has experienced life on the edge, foraging for food—and it scared her more than she will admit—but it also gave her a deep sense of who she is and what she can do.

Explain the role of social media in the book?

In early drafts, I protected Jupiter from electronic devices. But as I talked more with young readers, that didn’t make sense. I was visiting an author friend and watching The Voice when Taylor John Williams, a Portland street performer, wowed me. I suddenly knew Jupiter would know about him or someone like him. Then kids introduced me to a Lennon and Maisy You Tube video and to attitudes about fame that often dominate their ideas of a happy future.  I tried to reflect their world in my choices.  

Why song quotes to start each chapter? Why the cello for jupiter's mom?

Almost all of the songs at the beginning of chapters are folk songs I actually sing with my sisters. We gather every Sunday and sing for our mom. Our brother is teaching overseas, and we miss him and want to have him back (with his guitar) but we also love the sisterly sweet, sweet harmony. (And we do like songs in a minor key—better yet if they’re gruesome.) My older sister played the cello; one of my sons played the cello; I played the bass for a while. Love those low sounds. (I sing tenor most of the time.)

What is meant by a “modern family”?

Through the adoptive community, I’ve met all kinds of different families. Edom’s story isn’t the story of any one family I know; I wanted to be more respectful than to use those real details. But I’ve met many configurations of adults and children choosing to share their lives in one orbit.

What is the impact of adoption on Jupiter and her family? What is a forever family? What's an adoptive family? Why does an Ethiopian girl join Jupiter's family?

“Forever family” is a term I hear when I’m hanging out with families that have adopted kids from Ethiopia. It’s meant to convey a sense of warmth and safety for kids whose lives have been disrupted--often by sickness or death of adults around them. Loss echoes through every one of those situations, though. I wanted to give some voice to the children (like me, like my grandchildren) who have to find their balance moving from one country to another and also children (like my grandma and mom) who have terrible loss at the heart of their family story. Edom becomes part of Jupiter’s family because she has nowhere else to go—and Jupiter’s mom knows that (even if Jupiter doesn’t) and responds, just the way I’ve seen people in the adoptive community step up in some pretty heroic ways.

Explain How authentic Identity can be drastically different from how we are seen on the outside?

I asked some fifth graders during a recent author visit this question: “when I came to America as a second grader, I had lived in Ethiopia and seen countries like Egypt and Italy and Greece and France. I had explored part of New York City and driven all the way from there to Boise, Idaho. Do you think other kids thought I’d had a cool life?”

One girl said, “They probably thought you were weird.”

Too true.

Like Jupiter, I often pretended I didn’t care. My parents raised us to celebrate our adventuresome life, so I didn’t always admit how scared and vulnerable I really felt.

Explain how opportunity knocks at the least expected time for Jupiter and Edom?

A freelance writer is always looking for opportunity to knock. I like to remind people there’s a reason why we have the phrase starving artist. So I understand how Jupiter, a performer who helps her family earn a living, would feel: always having her eyes open. The twins she meets at the farmers’ market, the next door yard that suddenly looks like a job, the bottles in the bins that can be turned in for money—and then the Greyhound bus escape route all become unexpected opportunities that of course Jupiter grabs because that’s her way of life.

Explain buskers and their role in the book?

I hadn’t heard the term “busker” when I began writing Planet Jupiter. I used the phase “street performer.” An author’s brain is not the same as her protagonist’s brain, though. It was lots of fun reading about buskers in Portland and California because Jupiter’s background as a busker had to become real to me. When I read a draft aloud to my brother’s third grade Portland class, they not only knew what buskers were, one of them had been a busker all over the world.

I like the planetary metaphors and all the other direct and indirect lessons. Especially the lessons on belonging and family. Is there a central lesson to the book?

Initially, I was only trying to come up with a hippie name for my protagonist, and Jupiter leaped out as fitting for a bold, brave girl. (I had more trouble settling on her brother’s name: he was Star and Rigel before he became Orion.) Then I thought, If you were named Jupiter, wouldn’t you know everything about Planet Jupiter? As I kept crafting scene after scene, I saw that Jupiter thinks it’s shameful to be tied up to the ground, so she cuts herself off from the comfort of place and family—and planetary imagery was useful to show her brain and heart.

I think of the central lesson of the book as this: No matter how we celebrate the lone wolf, what humans really need is connection…to each other and the Earth.

Explain Jupiter's dad and the idea of limitless possibilities in a world full of limits?

Lots of songs celebrate the “I don’t need nobody” character, the rolling stone who gathers no moss.  Jupiter’s dad and his choices show what happens when we take those myths to heart—what we sacrifice and what we lose.

Any parting thoughts to your readers?

Every time I visit Ethiopia, I see how people struggle with basic needs like clean water and education and health care but are deep and rich in family and community.  I wish for us all music…dancing…soil under our fingernails…and tenderness and curiosity for the humans around us.

Remember, stay curious my friends, and let Planet Jupiter move you grow and strengthen your heart, and open your mind to new relationships with those around you! You wont regret a minute of reading Planet Jupiter by Jane Kurtz! But you don't have to take my word for it. Explore this story for yourself and your family soon!