This is what good middle grade looks like: emotionally honest, age-appropriate, and brave enough to show a girl falling for another girl without making it A Very Special Episode. The tornado and displacement add weight and stakes beyond the crush storyline, keeping it from being one-note.

Ashley Herring Blake writes with the kind of tenderness that doesn't condescend—Ivy feels like a real 12-year-old, not a miniature adult or a caricature. The art-as-identity thread is lovely, and the mystery element (who's leaving the notes?) gives it narrative momentum.

For LGBTQ+ kids, this is a mirror they desperately need. For everyone else, it's a well-told story about courage, family, and figuring out who you are when everything around you has been knocked sideways. The 4.7 Amazon rating and Common Sense Media endorsement back up what the synopsis promises: this is solid, important, and genuinely good reading.