The Seventh Most Important Thing

The Seventh Most Important Thing
ISBN: 9780553497311
Publication Date: 4 October 2016

This "luminescent" (Kirkus Reviews) story of anger and art, loss and redemption will appeal to fans of Lisa Graff's Lost in the Sun and Vince Vawter'sPaperboy.
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Arthur T. Owens grabbed a brick and hurled it at the trash picker. Arthur had his reasons, and the brick hit the Junk Man in the arm, not the head. But none of that matters to the judge-he is ready to send Arthur to juvie forever. Amazingly, it's the Junk Man himself who offers an alternative: 120 hours of community service . . . working for him.
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Arthur is given a rickety shopping cart and a list of the Seven Most Important Things: glass bottles, foil, cardboard, pieces of wood, lightbulbs, coffee cans, and mirrors. He can't believe it-is he really supposed to rummage through people's trash? But it isn't long before Arthur realizes there's more to the Junk Man than meets the eye, and the "trash" he's collecting is being transformed into something more precious than anyone could imagine. . . .
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Inspired by the work of folk artist James Hampton, Shelley Pearsall has crafted an affecting and redemptive novel about discovering what shines within us all, even when life seems full of darkness.

About the Author

Shelley Pearsall grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where she began writing stories in her bedroom closet as a child. She sent her first story to a New York publishing house at the age of thirteen. Although the manuscript was never published, its themes of survival and freedom ultimately became the inspiration for Pearsall's first published novel, Trouble Don't Last, written twenty years later.

In 2003, Trouble Don't Last received the prestigious Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction among other honors. Pearsall's newest novel The Seventh Most Importa...