(2) YA Thirteen-year-old Shai Stern is looking for their "new normal." In addition to an edgy new haircut and a change of pronouns, the former homeschooler is planning to attend public school for the first time. Their plan takes a surprise detour when the principal suggests Shai skip a grade and start school as a ninth grader. Shai's transition is even more of a challenge without best friend and homeschool buddy Moose by their side. Thankfully, Shai quickly makes friends with Edie and Nia and even nurtures their first crush on Edie. Balancing the excitement about new connections is an overwhelming amount of homework and a new set of academic expectations, causing Shai's anxiety and nervous skin-picking to return. A school project requires Shai to explore their family's Jewish heritage and how Judaism views people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. From interviews with family, attending holiday services with grandparents, and witnessing antisemitic vandalism of the family's synagogue, Shai learns more than expected about the importance of acceptance and community. While Sass tackles several heavy subjects in this affecting novel, readers remain hopeful as Shai comes out of each trial a stronger person.

Reviewer: Hill Saxton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 Melleby and Sass bring together the middle school–aged protagonists they each created for the 2021 short-story anthology This Is Our Rainbow (co-edited by Melleby and Katherine Locke) in this novel set at a camp for LGBTQ+ youth. Melleby's Abigail (she/her/hers), all but ostracized by her friends since she admitted to a crush on one of their mothers, begs her parents to send her to the camp. Sass's Kai (e/em/eir) attends under protest: eir parents sign em up after a bullying incident. The two newbies form sometimes-bumpy relationships with each other and with the more seasoned campers in a safe but not necessarily awkwardness-free space. There's a heightened awareness (even more than in other settings) that anyone might be romantically interested in anyone else--or might not. There's also, realistically, a wide range of knowledge about and comfort with queer identities among the kids: one of them launches a campaign for a more inclusive camp name ("there's no letter in the QUILTBAG acronym for pansexual kids, plus a lot of others"), while Kai tries to remember what pansexual means. Intersectionality in the differences between campers adds another dimension, especially in the area of religion: Abigail attends Catholic school; Kai is "kind of" Jewish and tentatively learns more about Judaism from another camper. This engaging, gently affirming novel should be valuable to young readers exploring their own identities or curious about those of others.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) 4-6 The incoming eighth-grade Spanish students from Ellen Katz's Georgia prep school take a summer field trip to Barcelona. Ellen, who is autistic, is sometimes overwhelmed by the surprises the trip presents, starting with an unexpected team scavenger hunt. Several parts of the experience lead Ellen to realize that identity isn't always clear-cut, from her father's choice to eat non-kosher food while he's chaperoning to a teammate's use of they/them pronouns. Ellen is a satisfyingly well-rounded character with complex relationships who makes mistakes and learns from them. She figures things out about herself, including trying out an adjustment to her--or maybe sometimes their--own pronouns. The presence of multiple queer characters allows for a variety of feelings toward what to share and how big a deal being queer is or isn't. The amazing-to-imagine (if unlikely for most readers) school trip provides an appealing backdrop, but it is the story's interpersonal aspects that are especially welcome.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(2) 4-6 After winning the title of U.S. Juvenile Girls Champion in figure skating, twelve-year-old Ana-Marie Jin is ready to start a new season on the ice, competing at a higher level and commuting most days from San Francisco to a new rink in Oakland. It also means ­working with a new choreographer who is not only strict but requires all female skaters to wear skirts, even to practice. Ana starts to notice that "girly" things at which she had previously never blinked an eye, such as being referred to as "Miss Ana-Marie" and wearing a bedazzled costume for competitions, now make her cringe. With help from new friend Hayden, a transgender skate student she meets at the rink, Ana begins to see her gender in a new, fluid way: "Uncertainty feels like less of a burden and more of an opportunity." Ana's family (a single-parent Chinese American Jewish family) is not one frequently represented in middle-grade stories. For all of the protagonist's discomfort, the tone of the story remains hopeful as she works toward a new understanding of herself. She decides to continue using her given name and pronouns--a helpful reminder that there is no one way to identify as nonbinary. The personal connection of the author, a figure skater who identifies as nonbinary, to the story is evident within its pages in both the nuances of figure skating and Ana's interrogation of gender, and is explained in a thoughtful note at the end.

Reviewer: Hill Saxton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020