Cathleen Barnhart has written an engaging, moving story about two friends, Sammie and David, who have played baseball together all their lives and whose friendship dynamic is shattered when a new kid, Luke, joins their school. David, an insecure, artistic boy with a crush on Sammie, feels like he needs to emulate charismatic, would-be playboy Luke, whose forward advances and aggressive harassment (which he and the other boys see as "flirting") make Sammie deeply uncomfortable. Grown ups and even Sammie's older sisters don't seem to understand just how bad Luke makes Sammie feel, nor does David understand how complicit he is in falling under peer influence and alienating people he cares about. Both students deal with filial expectations that are, at their core, unfairly gendered (David pressured to be athletic, his art not taken seriously, and Sammie pressured to play baseball because to her father, "girls softball" isn't a "serious sport") and find ways to free themselves from those confines. It's resonant and teaches important lessons about perspective and the need telling the truth all without being preachy or simplistic. Barnhart understands and trusts middle school students; the way she writes is clear she holds the upmost respect for them and for the world they live in. ( )

This account of Sammie is a powerful, yet cautious story about the issues of consent and sexual harassment written for for a middle-grade audience.

Sammie Goldstein and David Fischer have been best friends since forever, but as the two come of age, they begin to feel the stirrings of something more than childhood friendship.

David realizes he has a crush on Sammie, and is nervous about revealing his feelings to her. Enter new kid, Luke Sullivan, who is extremely cool and oh so handsome. He had moved to New Roque, which is a the New York City suburb. David sees him as immediate competition. Sammie, not up for changes wants to simply continue being friends with David and to keep her spot on the baseball team. There is a subplot here concerning Sammie and of her dad’s narrow minded view that softball is for girls and that anything for girls must be inferior. Sammie has played baseball with the boys for years and is quite a good baseball player who competes competently with the boys.

One day David accidentally touches Sammie’s chest, and their friendship begins to unravel fast. During this time of confusion for everyone, even Luke, Sammie discovers a newfound camaraderie with the girls she had always dismissed as being too girly.

This timely and necessary account is told in the alternating perspectives of the two white Jewish young people. I felt the the plot became a bit slow paced in the middle as the characters stumble painfully through constant failures to communicate. This was frustrating for this reader, as I wanted to help Sammie understand and deal with the complicated issues of middle school and home life.

This is a carefully written story for the middle grades that address both the ways that misogyny and the sexual violation culture surface at that age and how it’s hard but necessary to get the help you need. ( )