NOWHERE BETTER THAN HERE

Jillian Robichaux is determined to fight back when her beloved home’s threatened by coastal erosion.

Tiny Boutin, Louisiana—with houses built on tall stilts—has survived devastating hurricanes, but it’s unusually heavy rain that causes a massive flood and blows her estranged father back into her life. After rescuing an elderly woman’s old photographs from her flooding house, 13-year-old Jillian doesn’t recognize some places in the pictures, despite her hometown’s being a keystone of her identity. Investigating further, she learns how much of her town has ended up underwater over the past half-century. Worse, the state doesn’t want to repair the damaged bridges or schools (instead shuttling kids to a larger town’s schools), devastating Boutin’s chances for recovery. Stubborn Jillian teams up with her brainy cousin and an artistic activist friend from her new school for a three-pronged approach to the disaster: a video and photographic oral history project to preserve locals’ memories, a petition to save the school, and service helping ecological groups plant marsh grass to combat coastal erosion. The projects’ trajectories manage to balance optimism, empowerment, and realistic ideas of what success looks like—the last causing emotional struggles for Jillian. Most characters are Cajun; there are two prominent Black characters, and southern Louisiana’s Vietnamese community is acknowledged. Fictional Boutin’s dilemmas are inspired by real climate change events.

Come for gumbo and jambalaya; stay for the phenomenal hero with a powerful growth story.