The Exact Location of Home

I was a huge fan of The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. so I was thrilled to find out that Kate Messner had written a new story featuring these characters. Zig's story did not dissapoint.With much heart, hope, reality, and quirkiness, Zig shares with his readers his experience walking through a major life change, the mystery of where his father is, new feelings about his best friend Gianna, and how someone defines home.I really appreciated Zig's love for building and fixing electronics and how his discovery of geocaching led to finding himself and much more. Messner writes about homelessness, life in a shelter, and financial problems masterfully and tenderly. Her readers are encouraged to reconsider their preconceived notions of all of the above in a gentle and truthful way.It was an added bonus that Zig, Gianna, and Ruby continue their love of the outdoors through this book. The images of the lake, heron, and outdoor spaces filled me with peace and excitement.I wish books about real kids dealing with real life issues had been around when I was in middle school.This is a must-read.

Excellent book

Zig is an eighth grader and science nerd. He lives with his mother who is studying to become a nurse and always looks forward to visits from his father. His father always has interesting surprises but his father is also very unreliable. He keeps getting Zig's hopes up and cancelling on him.Things are not going well for Zig and his mom since his dad has also stopped sending child support. They are a couple of months behind on their rent and are going to be evicted. Zig can't understand why his mother won't contact his dad for help. He feels certain that she is keeping secrets from him.Zig has a couple of good friends Ruby and Gianna. They spend time together going to rummage sales. Zig is always looking for electronics. He hits the jackpot at one sale when a widow is selling some of her husbands projects which include a GPS unit. The kids know about geocaching because they learned about it in science class. When they decide to give geocaching a try, Zip discovers a cacher named Senior Searcher and become convinced that it is his father who is Senior Searcher.Zig decides to find Senior Searcher and convinces his friends to help him. They have a number of adventures finding the caches. Zig becomes sort of obsessed with the search as the rest of his life falls apart. He and his mom are evicted and find themselves living in a shelter after a couple of days living in their car. There he meets another woman and her son Scoop who are also homeless after fleeing an abusive husband and father.His obsession with finding his father and his lack of home are causing problems at school. It is hard to do his homework in the shelter and he often doesn't have school supplies. Seeing the different ways teachers helped or hindered him was interesting. His social studies teacher was big on doing community service to help the "unfortunate" but she didn't seem to realize that she could have some homeless kids sitting in the desks in front of her. Meanwhile, the librarian just quietly helped by leaving pencils and paper out for Zig to use without asking if he needed them.I also really liked the references to LIBRARY LION by Michelle Knutson. It was Scoop's favorite book and he often begged to have it read to him. It is one of my favorite books too. I always loved reading it to my students. I liked the lessons that both Zig and Scoop got from the book: sometimes people do change as Mr. McBee did and sometimes home isn't exactly what you might think it is.This was an excellent, engaging story.

Thank you @kidlitexchange for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.This middle grade book touches on so many wonderful topics: single parents trying to make ends meet, evictions, homelessness, wonderful friendships, environmental issues, sadness when you lose a loved one and even a bit of spousal abuse. I immediately felt all of the emotions that Zig was portraying and trying to cope with. Unfortunately, these are many situations that children have to endure on a daily basis. It's equally important to introduce children to these scenarios so they can develop a sense of empathy if they ever encounter it through a friend. You have to love a good story that makes you think that every situation comes with a different perspective. Hopefully it will teach readers to not be so quick to place judgement on others.I was really excited to read this book since it included geocaching. The story did a wonderful job of introducing and explaining this fun hobby. I've been finding and hiding geocaches with my family since 2011. It's a great activity to do with kids!! The author did a great job describing how the game works, the uses of a GPS, the various locations you can find a hide or the different containers they come in. I also loved that she included several ciphers. I hope it encourages some new players to look it up and join.Overall, this was a really great story. After reading a few other reviews, I've realized that the author has written an earlier book that includes some of the same characters: The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. I'd definitely be interested in going back and reading that one now!

Zig's dad suddenly cancels his visit and his mom won't tell him why but Zig has a plan. With a new-to-him GPS unit and his faithful friends, he's going to track down Senior Searcher, the geocaching alias he's sure is his dad. He's also going to find out why his dad has suddenly stopped paying child support.This book sheds light on an important social issue without sacrificing good storytelling or becoming didactic. Homelessness is common for children in the United States, but it's rarely addressed in books. This book does a good job of showing the reality and difficulties that homelessness can create for kids and families, while also maintaining the character's dignity.