As he turns 11, Martin Kelso's comfortable world starts to change: Girls get under his skin in ways he never noticed before, and neighborhood kids are playing different games. In 1980s New York, the teen years begin, and Marty's new world offers possibilities as exciting as they are frightening: first kiss, first enemy, first loss, and, ultimately, his first awareness that the world is not as simple a place as he had once imagined.

"Wise and winning…. A charming, marvelous debut."— Colson Whitehead