Rising sixth-grader Chris would like to be spending the summer with her best friend Vicky, working on their summer reading challenge. But her mother is having neck surgery for her chronic pain, and Frank, mom’s nonbinary butch girlfriend, has to take care of her. Chris and her younger sister Becca are therefore sent from Staten Island to Western Massachusetts to stay with their grandparents.
Nana and Papa are kind, but their emphasis on outdoor time works better for soccer-loving Becca than for introverted bookworm Chris. And Vicky now seems to be spending all her time with friends from theater camp. Chris, lonely and disgruntled, finds a solution in going off into the woods with a book, where a new friend might offer companionship … or not.
Award-winning author Alex Gino once again gives us a perceptive and compassionate look at a tween going through change. Unlike many of Gino’s other books, however, the changes here are unrelated to queerness (although there’s one scene in which Chris muses about gender). Instead, we see Chris grappling with a parent’s mobility challenges, a younger sister who is growing up, and her own loneliness. The first-person perspective offers effective insight into Chris’s awkwardness, shifting thoughts, and gradual personal growth, including a better relationship with her sister.
I’ll note, too, that the book is one of few middle grade books featuring a queer parent who had a child in a previous, heterosexual relationship; Chris doesn’t seem to know much about her father, however, other than that her mom “hated his guts”; he plays little part in the story. Still, it’s a nice nod to the many ways that queer families form.
Gino also includes a backmatter list of the 70 books Chris read over the summer—a trove of goodness that includes many titles with LGBTQ and other diverse characters.
Introspective, gentle, and yet a compelling portrait of a growing tween, this is a highly recommended story.
Chris and her family read as White.
