Pavi Sharma’s Guide to Going Home by Bridget Farr

Pavi Sharma’s Guide to Going Home by Bridget Farr is a beautifully passionate novel about a twelve-year-old named, well, Pavi Sharma. Pavi lives with her foster brother and foster mom after having lived on and off at many foster homes over the years and staying at a foster care center called Crossroads. However, one day when she returns to the center, she finds out that a little five-year-old, Meridee, is going to the place of Pavi’s nightmares, Pavi decides to save her and stop her from staying in the house which could potentially ruin her life.

Twelve-year-old Pavi Sharma also runs a business for foster kids and teaches them all she knows about going to new houses and amasses information for them about their new foster families. That’s how Pavi met Meridee while gathering data for one of her clients, Santos.

She was looking for Lenny, one of the employees at the shelter when she found Meridee playing with dolls in the room. Sadly, Pavi didn’t know the fate of the young girl until she went into Lenny’s office to ask him about Santos’s foster family. Lenny accidentally leaves one of his windows open and Pavi sees that Meridee will be going to the place where she hopes no child will ever go. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Nickerson.

When Pavi was there when she was just older than Meridee, she had nightmares about what happened at night. Mr. Nickerson would have dog fights and pay people to watch and bet on them as the dogs tore each other apart.

Pavi assembles a team of two other people her foster brother, Hamilton, and Santos to rescue Meridee from her doom. However, when their first plan of calling Child Protection Services fails, Pavi begins to lose hope, but she knows that she has to stop any child from ever going to their house ever again, especially such a five-year-old like Meridee. She pushes through her despair and they create another plan, one that all depends on Meridee getting all the steps done, one that is bound to fail, right?

I decided to review this book because of its unique plot. However, if you dig a bit deeper you would find the symbolism Farr wrote into the novel. In one instance, the name Pavi means “pure”, or “small” and Sharma means “joy”, or “comfort”. So the title Pavi Sharma could signify that Pavi brings pure joy to the people around her, such as the way she tries to save Meridee, or helps Santos know more about his foster family.