BRAVE LIKE THAT

Cyrus was just a baby when his fire-chief, football star dad found him on the steps of the Northfield firehouse. But growing up surrounded by heroes didn't make Cyrus brave like the firefighters who helped raise him.

Instead, he's as skittish as the stray dog who turns up on the firehouse steps eleven years later, parks his head on Cyrus's shoulder, and earns the perfect name - Parker. Too bad Cyrus's dad has a strict, no-pet-no-way rule. With football tryouts around the corner, and his dad's legendary reputation to live up to, a dog would only be a distraction. But a distraction is exactly what Cyrus wants: from the fact that he's the only sixth grader who can't read a whole book by himself, from the way his two best friends are treating the new kid in class - and from how he'd rather tap his feet to a record than score enough touchdowns to break one. Cyrus feels as out of place as the stray dog who captured his heart. But if fitting in means pretending to be someone he's not, maybe this is the year Cyrus can decide to be his own kind of normal. Lindsey Stoddard was born and raised in Vermont. She spent twelve years living in NYC and taught middle school English at MS 324 in the neighborhood of Washington Heights. She re- cently moved back to Vermont with her husband and two children. Brave Like That is her third novel, following the acclaimed Just Like Jackie and Right As Rain.