This bittersweet tale, recounted by 11-year-old Rose Howard in a purposeful storyteller's style, reveals a young 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 and be accepted is universal. Underneath her obsessions and seemingly robot-like outbursts she is smart, sensitive and eager to please. Her soft-spoken Uncle Weldon is one of the few in her charmed circle: he listens, he encourages her, and he drives her to and from school every day. The nuanced portrayal of that solid, loving relationship is sure to have everyone wishing for an Uncle Weldon of one's own.
When a devastating storm rips through the small community of Hatford, N.Y., the holes in Rose's 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