How to Stay Invisible by Maggie C. Rudd

In How to Stay Invisible, an abandoned boy attempts to make it on his own and discovers he needs other people.

How to Stay Invisible by Maggie C. Rudd. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2023, 230 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-15

Leftover Boy

Raymond has always been an afterthought to his parents—if that. They move every few months or whenever his father gets angry or bored, and Raymond just seems to be along for the ride. Latest stop is River Mill, North Carolina, and Raymond has no reason to think this one will be any different. Until November, when he walks three miles home from school (because his mother forgot to pick him up again) and discovers their trailer empty, his few possessions stuffed into a duffle bag on the front stoop. That’s all. No note, no explanation. Finally recognizing he’s totally on his own, Raymond starts building a camp in the woods next to his middle school. He has his dog, Rosie, and a fishing pole. He has the school dumpster to judiciously forage. He has memories of unsympathetic teachers and indifferent social workers and parents who almost never spoke to him without reminding him what a burden he was. The lesson of all that is to trust no one and rely on himself alone.

Can’t make it alone

Of course this can’t last. Raymond survives November half-starved but when a serious injury to Rosie forces him to look for help on Christmas Day, he probably saves his own life as well. Staying in one place means establishing a home, however crude, and meeting people, however reluctantly. Some may be okay. Some might even become friends. It’s a long and sometimes tortuous journey to a healthy social life, but well worth the effort in the end.

Raymond’s story is told straightforwardly with enough tension to attract even reluctant readers. His parents would be too neglectful to believe, if I hadn’t read Gary Paulsen’s memoir of a similar homelife (see our review of Gone to the Woods). Though there’s no mention of God, Raymond finds grace through friendship and responsible adults who care for him, redeeming the locust years.

Overall Rating: 4 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4

Read more about our ratings here.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reflection: Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet shows up in the story; see our discussion of that seminal survival novel in relation to environmentalism.
• Reviews: More gripping survival stories: Across the Desert, Beast, When We Were Lost and (Paulsen again) Northwind.

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