Lindsey Stoddard

Argh, why am I spending my afternoon sobbing my eyes out? Oh, yeah, right, this book has a kick like a mule and it landed right in the feels.

Anyway. 5th grader Robinson (Robbie) is a tough kid who tries to take care of everyone around her -- her friends who are bullied, her grandfather who is losing his memory and is her whole world, herself, when other kids make fun of her. She's a gem, but she's also in trouble all the time. Great teachers step in to try and help her manage her anger and show more to help several of the kids in the class open up about their tough times, so that they can help each other. Especially stellar things: Robinson is 1/4 African-American and lives with her grandfather, who does not look like her. Her grandfather runs an auto shop, and Robinson helps out there and loves cars and baseball. Her grandfather's #2 guy at the auto shop and his partner are in the process of adopting a daughter through the course of the book and there's no drama about the fact that they are both men -- it's just normal background life, like it should be. The book's all about maple sugaring and auto repair and learning to deal with your feelings. Alzeimer's and Cancer and Divorce and the hard project of family trees and difficult family times, too, but also hope and helpful authority figures and coping. Pretty great read if you're into contemporary middle grade school fiction. Set in Vermont. Keep tissues handy, the emotions just leap off the page like a face sucking alien. show less

Rain, 11, knows that only a quarter of marriages survive a child’s death; she’s determined to make her parents “one out of four.”

The family members mourn separately. Rain’s burdened by guilt over the loss of her teenage brother, Guthrie; her dad’s withdrawn, angry, and depressed; her mom, briskly efficient, has forced a fresh start, finding a job in New York, where Rain must finish sixth grade 288 miles away from her old school in Vermont. Rain misses her best friend and the show more track team. Their new apartment is tiny; Frankie, the Dominican super’s daughter, is unfriendly; the urban density’s overwhelming. Her family is white and doesn’t speak Spanish, and their new neighborhood is a Latinx one. The only place Rain spots other light-skinned people is at the trendy cafe where they sip espresso. Through community-service projects, a school requirement, Rain slowly finds her footing. The track coach recruits her to run the 100-meter relay with Frankie, Amelia, and Ana for a city meet—that’s scheduled on the anniversary of Guthrie’s death. Realistic explorations of how grief divides a struggling family and gentrification erodes a community are balanced by the love and friendship among these diverse characters. Rain likes to count things and loathes dresses. Like Frankie and her friend who’s moved away, Rain might be gender nonconforming. Amelia stutters; Nestor might be homeless; Casey dislikes being touched. Each is seen whole.

Timely, well-integrated themes, a vibrant setting, and well-drawn, likable characters—the diversity’s unlabeled, but it’s there—make this a winner. (Fiction. 8-12)

-Kirkus Review show less

Rain, 11, knows that only a quarter of marriages survive a child’s death; she’s determined to make her parents “one out of four.”

The family members mourn separately. Rain’s burdened by guilt over the loss of her teenage brother, Guthrie; her dad’s withdrawn, angry, and depressed; her mom, briskly efficient, has forced a fresh start, finding a job in New York, where Rain must finish sixth grade 288 miles away from her old school in Vermont. Rain misses her best friend and the show more track team. Their new apartment is tiny; Frankie, the Dominican super’s daughter, is unfriendly; the urban density’s overwhelming. Her family is white and doesn’t speak Spanish, and their new neighborhood is a Latinx one. The only place Rain spots other light-skinned people is at the trendy cafe where they sip espresso. Through community-service projects, a school requirement, Rain slowly finds her footing. The track coach recruits her to run the 100-meter relay with Frankie, Amelia, and Ana for a city meet—that’s scheduled on the anniversary of Guthrie’s death. Realistic explorations of how grief divides a struggling family and gentrification erodes a community are balanced by the love and friendship among these diverse characters. Rain likes to count things and loathes dresses. Like Frankie and her friend who’s moved away, Rain might be gender nonconforming. Amelia stutters; Nestor might be homeless; Casey dislikes being touched. Each is seen whole.

Timely, well-integrated themes, a vibrant setting, and well-drawn, likable characters—the diversity’s unlabeled, but it’s there—make this a winner. (Fiction. 8-12)

-Kirkus Review show less

children's middlegrade fiction
6th grade white girl moves from small town Vermont to NYC where she feels out of place amongst her Spanish-speaking neighbors. She really just needs someone to talk to about her parents possibly getting divorced/separated and about the role she thinks she played in the events leading to her older brother's death by random car accident.
I skipped 50 pages of this because although the characters were perfectly sweet and felt genuine enough, the author kept show more inserting stupid, pointless short 'teaser' chapters that were supposed to make the reader think Rain did something terrible on 'that night.' If you're going to make the reader toggle between the present and the past, you need to have each part of the story unfold along the way, don't just keep withholding all the story to 'keep it interesting' and then not even have a very interesting story to reveal at the end. It would have been fine to just keep the story in the present and have Rain be reluctant to talk about it. So much energy was put into keeping that secret that it took away from the feelings of grief and loss, which were actually well-written parts (the different ways each character showed and shared their sadness). So there was quite a bit that was good, but definitely wouldn't be my pick for the Newbery, or even a starred review. show less