Nina Soni, former best friend by Kashmira Sheth, illustrated by Jenn Kocsmiersky

I liked Sheth's young middle grade chapter book, The No-Dogs-Allowed-Rule, when I read it back in 2012 although I felt it had some flaws. She's since published some picture books, but I hadn't really followed her work much until I got a galley of her newest work, returning to the young middle grade audience, and this time starting a new series.

Nina Soni has a hard time keeping track of, well, everything. She tries to make lists, but with all the things going on in her life it's so hard to remember stuff! On top of all that, she starts the book with a disaster, accidentally ruining her best friend Jay's art project. Now he won't even talk to her! Nina has to figure out how to repair her friendship, help her mom get ready for her little sister's birthday party, fix her sister's hair disaster, and finish her personal narrative project in only a few days. Can she do it?

In the end, although Nina doesn't solve all her problems without help, she does work things out, repair her friendship, and help her sister have a memorable birthday party. She also discovers some things about herself and her family along the way.

Nina is Indian-American and her best friend Jay is part Indian, part Caucasian. Part of their issues stem from his family from Texas moving to Wisconsin and taking up more of his time with fishing, camping, and other outdoor sports. Nina worries a lot, as Jay tells her at the end, and her father being on a long business trip doesn't help. With her family pulling together, and Nina finally telling her friends and family her worries, things get much better though.

The issues I had with Sheth's earlier work aren't apparent here. Nina's Indian-American culture is smoothly woven into the narrative and the text is much smoother and less choppy, though still at an approachable reading level. The book is about 150 pages long, just right for fluent 2nd grade readers up through 4th grade. Peachtree sometimes has iffy covers for their chapter books, but this is a good choice, showing Nina on the cover with her mixed feelings clear in her face.

Verdict: Add to Claudia Mills' Franklin School Friends, Eleanor and Owen, and other realistic school and family fiction. This is especially attractive to me, since it's casually mentioned that it's set in Wisconsin!

ISBN: 9781682630570; Published October 2019 by Peachtree; Galley provided by publisher; Purchased for the library