It’s the summer between grade 4 and 5 and Ferris (born Emma Phineas Wilkey) has her hands full.
She thought it would be a relaxing summer but she’s dealing with her six-year-old sister Pinky who wants to become an outlaw, her uncle whose moved into her basement due to his relationship troubles, and her grandmother who isn’t feeling well and has started to see a ghost.
I love all of Kate DiCamillo’s books and Ferris made it to the top of the list for me. It’s a perfect middle grade book about relationships, a small community, grief, family, friendship, siblings, and most importantly love in its many expressions.
DiCamillo has a knack for bringing to life characters who are quirky, loveable, and real. You can’t help but feel invested in each of their lives as we witness ordinary and extraordinary moments between them. This book is a wonderful combination of laugh out loud funny, real-life problems, and touching, tearful moments.
Ferris learns a lot about relationships from her best friend Billy Jackson who is destined to play music, her sister whose set on getting in trouble, and through her deep connection to her grandmother Charisse whom she feels closest to.
The words and phrases in this book are meaningful. Charisse tells Ferris all the time that “every story is a love story” which plays out throughout the book. While Ferris and Billy are constantly defining “Mielk vocabulary words” that their teacher last year taught them.
What I loved most about this story is how love showed up over and over again in some of the most unpredictable ways.
I’d highly recommend this book to anyone of any age. It would be a great read aloud book for a classroom and for the children in your life and may cause you to smile a little bigger, laugh out loud and shed a few tears.
Helps with: understanding relationships, endings and beginnings, grief, acceptance, vocabulary, intuition, parental love, sibling love, friend love, a dog’s unconditional love, a love of words, unrequited love, and eternal love from beyond.
Author: Kate DiCamillo
Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2024