Rudi McKay, Ed.D
Sycamore Boy is such an emotional, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful coming-of-age story. H. Les Brown takes Tony through first love, devastating loss, survival, chosen family, and the complicated process of figuring out who you are when the life you knew is ripped away from you.
I really connected with the queer coming-of-age aspect of this story. Tony’s relationship with Jake felt tender and electric, but the danger surrounding them made their love even more heartbreaking. I also appreciated how the story expands beyond that first love and becomes something much bigger—a story about survival, identity, trauma, resilience, and finding your way back to yourself.
The mystery surrounding Tony’s father added another layer that kept me turning pages, and I loved the way pieces of the past slowly came together. There is a lot of darkness here, but there is also so much humanity.
A moving and deeply personal-feeling story about first love, survival, chosen family, and refusing to let the worst things that happen to you define the rest of your life.