When Friendship Followed Me Home

Starred review from March 28, 2016
After growing up in foster care, 12-year-old Ben Coffin is just happy to have a home and a loving mother; living in Coney Island is icing on the cake. Ben adores the beach, the boardwalk, and the local librarian, Mrs. Lorentz. When he meets her daughter, Halley, there is an instant connection, fueled in part by Flip, a dog Ben rescues from the street. Soon Ben and Halley are best friends, collaborating on a fantasy story and hanging out all the time, even as she undergoes chemotherapy. But Ben has learned that good things don’t tend to last, and when his mother dies, and Halley’s treatments begin to fail, he has to dig deep to find faith in people, the world, and himself. As in his young adult books, Griffin (Adrift) handles hard topics with penetrating insight and honesty, while balancing painful moments (and there are many) with levity, such as Flip’s need to lick everyone on the mouth. Ben wrestles with big questions in relatable, realistic ways, and his huge heart and optimism will win over even the most hardened skeptics. Ages 10–up. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

March 15, 2016
A former foster child deals with love and loss and love again. The hints are abundant. Twelve-year-old Ben, who has taken most of his life lessons from reading Star Wars stories, is the adoptive son of a loving and understanding but elderly lesbian. The charming mite of a stray dog that adopts the white boy is also old. Most worryingly, the endearingly depicted Halley, his fully rounded new best friend, also white and the daughter of a so-perceptive librarian and a funny magician, is undergoing chemotherapy. What could go wrong here? After he discovers his dead mom on the floor, Ben's remote but well-intentioned aunt and abusive, bumbling uncle, the pair constantly at odds, become his reluctant new parents. What resilient, generous Ben, in a lifetime of foster care punctuated by loss, hasn't learned is how to believe in the lasting power of love. It's irrepressible Halley, her health faltering, and her gentle parents who teach him how to cope with loss without forgetting how to love, even when that love is perilous. Together he and Halley compose an otherworldly tale, The Magic Box, that's a parable of their lives. Those familiar with Griffin's books for teens know that Kleenex may be needed to successfully navigate this wrenching journey, which breathes fresh, warm life into what might have been an overworked cliche. Entrancing, magical, tragic, and uplifting. (Fiction. 10-14)

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April 1, 2016

Gr 5-8-Twelve-year-old Ben, a science fiction fan with low self-esteem after years of foster care, meets a stray dog outside the Coney Island Public Library. Flip, with his big eyes and propensity to lick everyone's mouth, in turn helps Ben get to know a girl who is fighting cancer, and her family. When Ben's life gets turned upside down again, Flip remains. This is a "kitchen sink" book; it has bullying, adoption, homelessness, death, abuse, and cancer. However, the optimism of the protagonist combined with the positivity lent by the presence of this loving canine makes this book somehow less hard-hitting than the author's usual YA dramas. Griffin never throws too much at readers at once, taking his protagonist through each successive challenge, and the dialogue remains consistently light and free of overt emotion. References to science fiction and middle grade literature abound, and there's some serious admiration for dogs, librarians, and Jacqueline Woodson's Feathers. The weakest part of this novel is the convoluted science fiction story Ben and the aforementioned girl unspool throughout. The plot-within-a-plot is written by these two imaginative kids with unfettered fancy, with the same quality of a child's writing. If readers can get past those sections, however, the relentless pull of Ben's slow character growth through his drama and the big loving doggy presence will pull misty-eyed readers to the very end. VERDICT If you have middle schoolers who are too young to fully grasp John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and love dogs, give them this sweet tearjerker.-Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

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