Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Shelter

Author: Christie Matheson

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4.5/5

Diversity: Food allergies side character, Cerebral palsey death mute side character mentioned, Yemen side character mentioned, Gender neutral side character

Recommended For...: middle grade books, contemporary, homelessness

Publication Date: October 12, 2021

Genre: MG Contemporary

Recommended Age: 10+ (Shelter, Homelessness, Father in hospital, Bullying, Microaggressions, Food insecurity)

Explanation of CWs: Maya lives in a shelter and some of the book deals with education of shelters and showing what they look like. Maya also deals with homelessness and food insecurity, which are brought up often in the book. Maya’s father is in the hospital due to a hit and run accident. There is bullying shown throughout the book. There are some microaggressions shown and mentioned.

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

Pages: 192

Synopsis: Fifth grade can be tough for anyone. There are cliques and mean kids and homework and surprise math tests. But after tragedy strikes her family, almost-eleven-year-old Maya has a painful secret that makes many days feel nearly impossible.

And today might be Maya's toughest yet. Her family is on edge, she needs to travel alone across the city, a bully is out to get her, and Maya has to face this winter's biggest rainstorm without a coat or an umbrella.

But even on the rainiest days, there's hope that the sun will come out soon.

Emotional and compassionate, Shelter looks at homelessness through one girl's eyes and explores the power of empathy, friendship, and love.

Review: I absolutely fell in love with this book so much that I finished it in a one hour reading session. The book takes course during one day in the life of Maya, who has to face homelessness, food insecurity, bullying, and the rain. I loved how the book had notes on homelessness, shelters, and poverty in the front of the book to help educate readers on the very serious issue. I also loved all of the diversity in the book and I loved the commentary on how hungry kids can’t perform as well as fed kids in the book, because that’s a point that a lot of people seem to miss about food insecurity. The character development was well done and the world building was fairly good. I also liked the plot and it kept me hooked throughout the book.

The only issue I really had with the book is that the book paints the bully to be just jealous of Maya. While that might be true, that really downplays a lot of the harm she did to multiple people, including insinuating that a character’s mother would miscarry another child. I do feel that most young bullies have unresolved issues that they perpetuate onto others and use that to bully them for it, but it really downplays the harm that it causes children when you’re told “oh they’re just jealous of you” because, as someone who was told that multiple times before about bullies, it makes the victims feel like they should be more compassionate to the bully when the bully needs to have therapy and come to the conclusion themselves about their issues,

Verdict: It was good!