A Field Guide to Getting Lost

LOCAL AUTHOR

Ten-year-old Sutton is a nerd who loves working with her bot. Her parents are divorced, and Sutton lives with her musician dad, Martin. Her mother has an apartment in the same building, but she spends most of her time in Antarctica studying penguins. Luis, who lost his father to cancer when he was two, lives with his mother, Elizabeth. He’s creative and suffers from severe allergies. Sutton and Luis meet when Martin and Elizabeth are seriously dating and clearly thinking about a future together. Sutton and Luis couldn’t be more different from each other, but how they find ways to appreciate and respect their differences and ways to work together is a great story.

Joy McCullough tells this wonderful story in first-person, alternating chapters between Sutton and Luis. This is no easy task, but McCullough handles it deftly with pitch-perfect middle-grade voices of these two very different children. This is a story so many kids will relate to — having to meet and get along with step-siblings and step-parents — and is a welcome addition to any library or classroom. Strong writing, well-rounded, credible characters, and a compelling story add up to a winner of a book.