To Night Owl From Dogfish

To Night Owl From Dogfish
Holly Goldberg Sloan & Meg Wolitzer
Dial, 2019
Grades 4-7
Realistic Fiction

Told entirely in e-mails and letters, Sloan and Wolitzer trace the relationship between two very different girls who are thrown together by chance and stay together by choice. Bett, a risk-taking California girl, contacts Avery, an anxious New Yorker, when their fathers fall and love and plan to send them to summer camp together while they travel to China. Naturally, Bett and Avery resist going to camp, feel threatened by their father's romance, and resent having no say in both the relationship and the decision to spend the summer at camp. After ignoring each other for the first bit of the experience, the two become unlikely friends, eventually getting tossed out together and spending a wonderful summer with Avery's estranged mother and Bett's beloved grandmother. China does not go as planned and the Dad's break up, only to have the daughters disappointed that they will no longer be a family. The two girls design a scheme to reunite the Dads in hope that their love will resurface. Nothing goes as planned and Bett and Avery have to navigate the waters of their friendship on their own terms.

Two award winning authors team-up to create a book featuring another great female team. We know Sloan from the fabulous middle grade novel Counting by Sevens, among other titles, and Wolitzer, a respected adult and teen author, makes her middle grade debut. Folks will immediately make connections to the Parent Trap, but with gay dads. The format is reminiscent of Paula Danzinger and Ann Martin's Longer Letter Later, which was a huge hit in its time. Unconventional formats, in this case primarily e-mails, are very popular with young readers and give the book an extra interesting layer, while also making it accessible to reluctant readers. Summer camp books are also popular, especially ones that involve capers and hijinks. The story has a fun plot, especially as seen through the eyes of the narrators, that moves quickly. The authors include a lot of humor and there are a few laugh-out-loud funny moments. The characters are quirky, believable, and likable. The two protagonists change and grow in positive ways from their relationship with each other and their lives will be forever changed because of the association. A little twist at the end leave readers with a satisfying ending that is not too obvious and saccharine. A fun and fast read that is perfect for the lazy days of summer.