This is the favorite of my 9-year-old, Lucy. She picked it out at the bookstore because a friend had told her it was good, plus she loved the cover (that's a real thing, so we work with it). I was a little concerned it might be heavy for her (read the summary and you'll see what I mean), but she loved this story about a lonely girl who overcomes adversity in the way that fitting for her. Adults, you won't be sorry if you pick this up for yourself, regardless of whether or not you have kids of your own.

Entertainment Weekly says, "Holly Goldberg Sloan is skilled at creating sympathetic and utterly charming young characters, and in Short she succeeds once again. . . . Sloan manages to deftly weave in tough topics like grief and identity with both the same humor and tenderness."

This modern-day version of The Parent Trap is fun for the whole family. This collaboration between two highly successful authors—one who primarily writes for kids, the other for grown-ups—features two twelve-year old girls living on opposite coasts who strike up an unwanted correspondence after they discover their single fathers fell in love at a building conference and are now dating. This relationship is not good news to either of them, as they make clear in the ensuing emails that comprise the book. Their situation goes from bad to worse when their fathers force them to attend the same summer camp, hoping they’ll become friends. Things go horribly wrong in more ways than one, but there's not a single page here that doesn’t feel fresh, funny, charming, and real. A big-hearted story for readers of all ages. For fans of C.C. Payne’s The Thing About Leftovers and Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things That Will Not Change.

From the publisher: "It's been almost a year since Sila's mother traveled halfway around the world to Turkey, hoping to secure the immigration paperwork that would allow her to return to her family in the United States. The long separation is almost impossible for Sila to withstand. But things change when Sila accompanies her father (who is a mechanic) outside their Oregon town to fix a truck. There, behind an enormous stone wall, she meets a grandfatherly man who only months before won the state lottery. Their new alliance leads to the rescue of a circus elephant named Veda, and then to a friendship with an unusual boy named Mateo, proving that comfort and hope come in the most unlikely of places."