This bittersweet tale, recounted by 11-year-old Rose Howard in a purposeful storyteller's style, reveals a girl trying her best to keep it together.
Rose needs unbroken rules, prime numbers and homonyms to get through her days. And, since last year, she also needs the yellow-furred dog she named Rain (homonyms: rein and reign). To her father's frustration, Rose is on the high-functioning autism spectrum. He doesn't understand why she can't stop talking incessantly about homonyms, stop shouting sequences of prime numbers, stop asking him so many questions. So when he comes home quiet or his eyes get "black and hard," Rose and Rain both know to keep their distance. Some of Rose's challenges are specific to her autism, but her desire to fit in is universal. Underneath her obsessions and outbursts she is smart, sensitive and eager to please. The nuanced portrayal of her solid, loving relationship with her Uncle Weldon is sure to appeal to readers wishing for one of their own.
When a devastating storm rips through Rose's small community, the holes in her life become that much more jagged. Martin's clear, true, immediate writing places readers dead-center in the emotional maelstrom with Rose, who is much more than her father sees and braver than she knows. --Karin Snelson, children's book editor and reviewer