The four stars is my 10yo's rating. I bought for him because he was foster adopt--although he came to us at 11months old and we were his only placement--so a very different foster story. He liked the lobstering and seeing Aaron deal with his feelings about his mom.For me it was more of a 3 star, maybe two at the start (couldn't get into it) but I loved things toward the end--particularly when Tess realizes her happiness can't be wrapped up in one thing and it's not her job to control everything....

Tess firmly believes in luck and does all sorts of things to try and capture some of it. But wishes and luck are difficult things to grab ahold of as Tess quickly discovers. On her island home, the number of children have fallen below the threshold to have a school. If nothing is done, Tess and her family will have to leave the island and Tess will be unable to become a fisherman the way she wants to. So the islanders decide to take in foster children to both increase the number of children on t...

The main characters in touch blue are Tess, Libby, and Aaron. Aaron is the foster child that Libby and Tess' family adopted. His mom was told she could not raise him and his grandmother started to take care of him, unfortunately she died a few years after she took him in. So he went to a foster home and lived there until he was 13. The reason he was adopted along with a lot of other foster children was because the mayor of Maine threatened to shut down the island school because there were not en...

Touch Blue and your wish will come true. This is the story of a girl from a small island in Maine. Small enough that the state is planning on shutting down the island's school. So the families on the island get together and make a plan to foster children in order to get the school's numbers up.Tess (11) and her family foster a 13-year-old boy named Aaron. Aaron has a hard time with island life, and Tess keeps wishing on her lucky objects hoping things will change. When Tess learns she has to mak...

Touch BlueI hope this becomes a popular book. I loved it. The sentiments expressed by the narrator, 11 year old Tess Brooks, are important and are expressed well. She wants Aaron, her foster brother, to feel at home with her family in Maine. Tess devises an unusual method of helping Aaron overcome anger and grief. But Tess also grows and learns that there are worse things to lose than your school and home. This is a Vermont DCF Book Award nominee for 2011-2012.

I'm giving this 3 becasue it was short and sweet, and because younger kids will probably enjoy it if they like realistic fiction. I want to rate it 2 stars for the very fact that the plot kind of offended me. A bunch of families on a small island take in foster kids to keep their school open (they need more bodies to justify their school once another family moves away.) Taking in foster children is admirable and important, but the way this was presented felt too gimmicky. Aaron's storyline was g...

Touch Blue was a reread for me and I did not like it the second time around. I read it in 6th or 7th grade and loved it, but this year it was one of my least favorite books. It is a good book, like I said I liked it in 6th or 7th grade, but it's not for me anymore.

TOUCH BLUE is a book that’s about a foster kid coming to a house on a island. I like this book because I can feel how Aaron(foster kid) is ignoring the kids, and he’s doing it on purpose. I like how Tess is really trying to welcome Aaron. I hate that the writer didn’t add something more extreme when Aaron met his mother. Or when Tess wanted to help Aaron by sending a lot of emails to Aaron’s Mother. I can feel that Aaron cares about Tess(main character) and Libby(main character’s sister), but he...

Eleven-year-old Tess knows what she wants. She wants to stay on her tiny island home forever and she wants to be a fisherman when she grows up. She wants this plan to work because she can't even think about moving to the mainland and starting all over. The plan? To save their tiny island school from being shut down, island families have agreed to take in foster children. Which is how Aaron comes to live with them. Tess is hoping that Aaron will be like Anne from Anne of Green Gables - a feisty f...

TOUCH BLUECynthia LordIt's the Gloster Fisherman! The setting of the book is Maine, a state I have never been to but would love to go for sure. I always try to find books in that setting as I have a romantic picture of the state in mind. A tranquil, slower pace of life and more wildlife. So I am not sure why I was rather resistive to starting this book, but once I was beyond the first few pages I was completely enamored with it. The story is about an Island town that is losing population and the...

This book is sweet, but surprisingly slow-paced for a children's book. Not a lot happens, and I was surprised when I got to the end because it felt like the story never really got started.Too much of the book takes place in boats placing lobster traps, which is not super interesting. Another large portion of the book consists of written descriptions of music, which also is not super interesting. Then the final chapter is suddenly upon us, (view spoiler)[and it's a list of of conclusions for ever...

TOUCH BLUE was one of those books that I read quickly because I loved it so much...and then slowly toward the end, because even though I was desperate to find out how these characters' stories played out, I was so, so sad to leave them behind on the last page. I shouldn't have worried, though - the characters in TOUCH BLUE are the kind that stay with you long after you finish reading.There's hopeful Tess, who waits on the shore for the ferry boat bringing her father with the new foster kid who's...

Great companion book for "One for the Murphy's." I really enjoyed this book especially the analogy between Aaron (the orphan) and the blue lobster. Aaron is worried if the blue lobster will be okay since it wasn't released where it "belongs" and Tess says, "Well, he's blue! That's gonna stick out no matter what...and lobsters are like people: Some take to strangers okay, and others come at each other with their claws wide open. But he's in a good place, and it can be a home for him, if he'll let...

Tess's island town takes in foster children in order to keep their local school open. I didn't like this book. Her first book, Rules, worked because it had a foundation of authenticity to it that was totally lacking in this one, except for maybe three pages near the end. There are wonderful stories to be written about children in foster care, but they're grittier than this one, and more complicated. Not necessarily sadder, but harder. The present tense seemed forced and the luck theme seemed gim...

“Touch blue and your wish will come true.” Tess Brooks believes in luck. She stands on the pier waiting for her new foster brother, Aaron, to step off the ferry at Bethsaida island thinking about luck. Luck that Aaron will like her family. Luck that school won’t be closed. But then she spots Aaron and his red hair that shines out of the crowd like a beacon. Her heart sags; everyone knows it’s unlucky to ride a boat with a red-head. This is the setup for the story where Aaron has to learn to live...

A very sweet, touching story. It's age-appropriate (9 to 12, I should think), but it truly shows the anguish and loss foster children go through as a regular part of their lives. Tess sounds like a very recognizable, real eleven-year-old girl, and the author integrated the rural island setting very well into the story. The ending was great, too -- it was conclusive and hopeful, not all neatly-wrapped-up-live-happily-ever-after, but more like how real life would be. I think 9-to-12s, particularly...

cute...but better (and funnier) when I read it the first time, when it was called surviving the applewhites ;)

I am currently reading the book Touch Blue, and all i can say is WOW! It is a really touching book about a foster child that a girl and her family take in. You can really see the struggles of someone who is a little "different" because his parents couldn't help support him so they thought that he would have a better life as a foster child, which is better than living with a drug addict mom and a drunken dad. Nobody really ever realizes how hard it can be if your not "normal", but what is normal?...

A Quickie ReviewWhen a Maine island's school is threatened to be shut down by the state's government, the residents of the isle adopt kids in an attempt to save their schoolhouse.  Narrated by 11-year-old Tess, the story is as innocent as a Disney Channel Original Movie, and even portrays hymns, a preacher, and Christian faith in a positive light.  However, some discussion of "wishing" superstition is odd, given the rest of the book.  It's nothing special, but Touch Blue was a mildly enjoyable r...

11 year old Tess loves living on a small island in Maine with her fisherman father, school teacher mother and little sister - but the state is threatening to close the island's school house due to declining enrollment. Tess' family may have to make some very hard choices soon.The islanders come up with a plan to increase enrollment by taking in foster children. This too requires some hard choices.The story really resonated with me; partly because I read it while in Maine, and partly because one