One of the first things that 11-year-old Amber (officially Ambra) Miyamoto from South London would like to say is that she's half Italian and half Japanese. The second thing is, when she was six years old, her dad mysteriously disappeared and never came back. She's mad about it, too.
Emma Shevah's vivacious debut novel, Dream On, Amber, is the story of how Amber, her "super bossy and molto embarrassing" six-year-old sister, Bella, and her graphic designer mom persevere, despite her father's absence: "My dad leaving feels like there's this massive black hole in me, like the ones up there in space. It twists in a dark, silent spiral, super heavy, sucking some of the good things in and swallowing them up." The family gets along just fine without him, mostly, but Bella's birthday party is rapidly approaching, and she starts writing her dad letters in hopes that he will somehow, miraculously, show up. Amber, in a "genius" attempt to keep her little sister's heart from breaking, weaves a tangled web when she begins answering Bella's letters. Amber presents herself as a shallow girl whose biggest obsession is getting a peer-competitive cell phone, but she can't hide her big heart. Her snarky first-person voice keeps the story afloat, and her artistic streak manifests itself in both drawings of her "Dream Dad" and cartoonish doodles on every page.
Dream On, Amber, originally published in Great Britain, is an entertaining, largely unsentimental look at a girl who, as best she can, makes peace with both the family members she has around and the ones who sadly aren't. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness