The Infinity Rainbow Club: Nick and the Brick Builder Challenge by Jen Malia, illustrated by Peter Francis

 Jen Malia, author of Too Sticky! has written a chapter book series featuring neurodivergent children in their own after school club. Nick, the main character in this story, started the formation of the club when he asked his special education teacher if they could have a club just for the neurodivergent kids (his teacher calls them "brilliant buzzing brains") and the name came from Nick's mom's explanation of the infinity rainbow symbol. We briefly see some other kids in the club - Nick's friend Connor, Jasmine, who uses an adaptive device to communicate, Nick's little sister Grace, and Violet, who has OCD.

Nick's teacher makes a big announcement that there's going to be a brick builder challenge and everyone will have to have a partner. Nick ignores Connor's attempts to partner with him, because he ALWAYS builds by himself. With 11 kids, he's sure he'll be on his own, just the way he likes it. Then he finds out that a new girl, Ruby, is coming and since he didn't pick Connor she will be his partner!

Nick is very firmly focused on how much he does not want a partner, so he misses seeing the things he and Ruby have in common. He decides everything will go fine if he controls it all and makes sure it's all done "right" and his way, so he takes over the whole build, barely letting Ruby help and "fixing" the few things she does do. However, after some experiences at home with his older sister and some wise words from his friends, family, and teachers, he makes an effort to actually collaborate with Ruby at the big competition and things turn out better than he expects.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I prefer books where the focus is on the story, not necessarily on the kids' specific behavior. Some examples of this would be Tom Watson's The Candy Caper and Liam O'Donnell's West Meadows Detectives. On the other hand, I know a lot of neurodivergent kids definitely prefer everything laid out and explained, no subtleties or hints. Again, although there is racial and gender diversity shown in the group of kids in the book, Nick is a fairly "typical" example of ASD in a white boy. On the other hand, I can see how it would be an easier sell to start the series with something more familiar to publishers and the general public and the next two books in the series feature Violet, an Asian girl, and Nick's friend Connor, who appears to be biracial. In the end, I think I'll default to the author's own lived experience and her experience with her own kids and how she chose to write the story.

Verdict: I can see this being a great classroom read-aloud, both for neurodivergent and allistic kids, encouraging them to build social and collaborative skills and come up with their own solutions, like Nick did, for seeing others' perspectives and working with others. The books are a little more pricy than the overage chapter book, but worth adding to most library collections.

ISBN: 9781506493411; Published September 2023 by Beaming Books; Added to library order list