Amelia Gray Is Almost Okay

January 15, 2023
Identity struggles, moving, and navigating relationships with family and peers are at the center of this middle-grade novel. Amelia Gray, who prefers blending into the crowd, is experiencing her 39th last day of school--that's approximately one new classroom per month. Surprisingly, Amelia's life is actually fairly routinized; for example, she and her itinerant handyman dad pick a different subject to master via YouTube in each new town. When they arrive in their latest town near Pittsburgh, Amelia notices that each student's yearbook picture is captioned with their crowning achievement. She aims to find her special skill over summer break. Amelia flits from one hobby to the next, trying her hand at track, journalism, and even drama, using a different name for each. Trouble ensues when her dog, Biscotti, has a run-in with Ketchup, the dog belonging to Finn, another new kid. Schedule conflicts and other mishaps also create a challenge for Amelia as she attempts to keep her multiple identities hidden. The lives she and her dad have built together since the death of her mother in childbirth may be about to change forever as Dad begins to put down roots. The novel would have benefited from stronger character development to bolster readers' emotional connections with the themes touched on, including the search for identity during the preteen years, peer relationships, and single-parent families' experiences. Main characters read White. Skims the surface in exploring commonly addressed issues. (Fiction. 9-12)

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January 1, 2023
Grades 5-7 Twelve-year-old Amelia loves life on the road with Dad. Every month, he takes a new job in a different place, and Amelia starts over at another school (39 and counting). She's learned not to try to make friends, but she has her father and her dog for company, and she enjoys their dependable routine. When Dad takes a three-month job in the small town where her deceased mom grew up, Amelia is upset, but she seizes the opportunity to discover her passion. Reimagining herself as Amie (a track star), Mellie (journalist), and Lia (a musical theater enthusiast), with different looks and personalities, she joins three programs, makes several friends, and frantically tries to keep them away from one another. Brody portrays Amelia as an intelligent, independent, yet vulnerable character, dashing from one activity to another and feigning enthusiasm for each one, while her plan unravels in ways that are both amusing and touching. A feel-good story with a lovable protagonist, this well-paced middle-grade novel is engaging and enjoyable in equal measure.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 30, 2023
As 12-year-old Amelia Gray, who reads as white, finishes up sixth grade at her 39th school, she’s ready for yet another four-week stay in a new place with her single father, who travels the country revamping hotels. Happy with their unattached “life on the go” and their “supermutt” Biscotti, she is stunned when her father announces that they’ll stay in their next destination—Summerville, N.Y.—for an entire summer. He also challenges her to join an activity for the duration, and promises that if she sticks with it, he’ll secure the thing she wants most: a dog DNA test for Biscotti. Flummoxed by the realization that she lacks a “Thing” of her own, Amelia reinvents herself as three separate people, each with a different name, to find out which persona suits her best. As Amie the “track superstar,” Mellie the journalist, and Lia the performer, she makes friends—and enemies—and digs herself into a deepening pit of small-town drama as she tries to keep her identities separate and her father seems to put down roots. Aptly literalizing the perennial theme of reinventing oneself, this light comedy of errors from Brody (I Speak Boy) features laugh-aloud shenanigans and tender insights. Ages 10–up. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.