The Fourteenth Goldfish: 06/07/16

The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm is about a family turned upside down when the grandfather shows up at the door, suddenly much younger. Eleven year old Ellie is still coming to terms with falling out of friendship with her bestie and the recent revelation that her ancient goldfish was actually the 14th in a long line of surreptitiously replaced fish. Now with her grandfather being physically not much older than she is but still acting like the old grouch he's always been is just too much.

So there is Ellie at the bottom of pecking order watching her single mother and her once elderly father duking it out. Grandpa Melvin doesn't like how his daughter runs the house, how she puts out the garbage, how she waters the lawn, etc. Ellie meanwhile just wants peace and quiet and can't find any.

While on the one hand The Fourteenth Goldfish is an X-Files like story of a man making himself younger in appearance (though not in attitude or prejudices), it's also an examination of the family dynamic. The parenting generation is often faced with the reality of also having to care for their aging parents. Even without rare jellyfish DNA, dementia and other diseases turn once capable parents into child-like adults.

Five stars

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