When eleven-year-old Ellie’s older brother Jimmy is drafted into World War II, she joins the ranks of those who wait and worry on the home front. Ellie has classmates, teachers, and neighbors with loved ones in the war, but are any of those soldiers as special as Jimmy? Can anyone understand how she feels? For Ellie, the answer to that question comes in fits and starts over the course of this complex and moving story that also brings details of neighborhood, school, and family life in 1943 into full relief. Mary Ann Rodman incorporates the best and the worst of those times into Ellie’s story, from the lively music and sense of common purpose to the racism revealed in the common use of the term “Japs.” For Ellie, Jimmy’s absence does more than upset the rhythm of her daily life; it also opens her eyes to things she never noticed before. As the people around her deal with uncertainty and fear, and as Ellie experiences unthinkable loss, she must come to terms with the way war changes things and find a way to move on. In doing so, she finds that looking to the future with hope, and even humor, is the best way to honor the memory of her spirited brother. (Ages 10–14)

It's September 1943, and eleven-year-old Ellie McKelvey's older brother, Jimmy, has just been drafted. Jimmy has a joyful heart and a kind word for everyone, and he's the only person who thinks Ellie is smart and funny and as beautiful as Lana Turner, the movie star. Ellie can hardly stand to see him go. With Jimmy gone, Aunt Toots moves into his bedroom, Ellie's mother takes a war job at a factory, and everything in Ellie's life seems upside down. But she figures that the war will be over and Jimmy home by Christmas, so as much as she misses him, she keeps her spirits up. Even as families in the neighborhood begin to receive telegrams informing them that their boys are wounded or worse, Ellie never stops believing in Jimmy.
In her second work of historical fiction, Mary Ann Rodman captures all the authentic details of life on the homefront during World War II, as well as the fierce love a sister has for her beloved big brother.
Jimmy's Stars is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.