Fans of Amy Hest's Remembering Mrs. Rossi will rejoice for more about Annie Rossi in this companion novel, which unfolds through letters Annie writes to her newly acquired dog, Leo.
As Annie tries to make sense of her 40-year-old father's often confounding (in a good way) behavior, she encourages him to try new things, advice she reads in You and Your Elderly Parent ("You always sit on a bench in the park. Try something new! Such as a handstand in the park!"). Yet she gets frustrated when he does make changes in ways that affect their routine ("Why in the world would my father go to a dinner party without me?"). Hest does a graceful job of balancing the sense of loss Annie will always feel at the absence of her mother, the dominant theme of the previous book, with her attempts to move forward and rise to the universal challenges of fourth grade (as when her best friend sits with someone else at lunch, "and I have no one to sit with but boys").
Leo makes an ideal companion for Annie on her journey. Some of her letters chronicle her attempts to train him (e.g., "Be quiet at 5:00 a.m.... No pulling off blankets. No licking toes, noses, etc."); others bask in her love for him. Leo goes a long way toward filling the gaping hole left by Annie's mother, and by her sometimes absent-minded father, whose love for both Annie and Leo are never in doubt. Abundant humorous illustrations and the epistolary format make this an ideal choice for kids just starting to embark on chapter books, and its message of healing is salve for all ages. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness