I really enjoyed the writing in this book, but it didn't really seem to go anywhere. Cora does not have an easy life- her father died, her mother struggles to keep a roof over their head, and her sister has special needs. At first I really enjoyed the story, but then realized it wasn't really working towards any sort of resolution. I don't care for ambiguous endings and I don't think they really fit well in middle grade- my students really want an ending.

I listened to this book, and the narrator did a good job with Cora’s voice telling the story. The story itself, though, really didn’t do it for me. I didn’t have a sense of any character growth by the end: Cora actually learns to settle for whatever her mother can provide for them in terms of housing, finally getting an apartment a step above a shelter.
Cora’s mom seemed pretty out of touch with her family’s dire circumstances. She left the girls in some potentially dangerous situations and did not always take the help that was available to them, most notably, school lunches and appropriate special education placement for Adare.
Willa was the character I most identified with, and she tried to help and had a loving heart, thankfully. Cora would’ve stayed with her in a heartbeat if she could, and I almost wanted that to happen.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about was that the family lived in NYC. If you’ve read books set in the city, you know that it takes upon a life of its own, and I did not feel that at all. The setting was so bland, and the things the girls did were so *not* stuff people do in NYC that I wondered if the author had ever been there.
I absolutely think we need books for middle schoolers that reflect their reality, and I know we have food-insecure and housing-insecure students at my school who might be looking for a mirror of their own lives to read about, but I don’t think this book will help them see hopefulness, only more despair.

A wonderful book about a family who must learn how to survive after the death of their father/husband. The sisters, Cora (12) and Adare (10), learn to adjust to their new surroundings as they go and live with a friend of their mothers. Core must learn how to navigate her new life as she takes care of her little sister who has mental challenges. Learning about her mom when she was younger, and learning to adjust to her new surrounds, Cora learns that life changes quickly and plans do not always go as planned. A great book for bookclubs for those in elementary.

After Cora's father dies, her mother struggles to keep the family afloat. She works long hours in low paying jobs, but their circumstances are precarious at best. Cora is usually in charge of her mentally challenged sister. Against the backdrop of dangerous living conditions, crows that follow Cora and her sister as they move from place to place, and the trees Cora catalogs in the hope pf finding the Ailanthus altissima, the "tree of heaven”, which can grow anywhere even under adverse conditions, the story emerges as one of growth, family and home.
This is a great middle great read and belongs on the shelf alongside Katherine Applegate's, Crenshaw and Paula Fox's Monkey Island.

Cora Quinn, her sister Adare, and their mother have been moving from shelter to shelter and in and out of kind friends' residences since Mr. Quinn died. It's been awhile since they lived in a real home and haven't had to worry about their safety. Adare has a mental disability due to complications from birth, and Cora has to take care of her because their mother has to work long hours. Cora just wants to stay put in a real home and be able to make friends and do well in school. Through a series of circumstances, Cora will try to make a friend and will learn important life lessons as she finds out what a real home is.
This is such a heartbreaking, necessary book. Many families are forced to live like this, and this is the first middle grade book I have come across that directly and powerfully addresses the issue of homelessness. The addition of Adare's mental disability and the way Cora and her mother have to adapt to that is also a relevant and necessary topic that is just now starting to be addressed in children's and teens' fiction. The characters seemed so real to me that I could see them and their difficult circumstances in my mind. I think this book teaches great lessons about living with tough circumstances as well as different types of relationships. I was very satisfied with the ending, though it seemed a little open ended. I highly recommend this book!
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. A positive review was not required, and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

There are children that struggle quietly with things that they never expose at school, and they need to be seen and heard. This book does just that.

Brooklyn based middle schooler Cora never knew a real home. after her father died. Together with her mom and little sister Adare, they go from one place to another, from homeless shelter to stay at a friends house for a while and back, untill they hopefully one day find a place of their own.
While their mother works fulltime to make ends meet, Cora has to look after her sister Adare, wo is lightly disabled, rarely speaks and needs special care. Cora is doing well in school, although has been moved around so much that she struggles to make friends.

When their room in the shelter they currently stayed in was broken in and made into a giant mess, the little family seeks refuges at the house of one of their mother's old friends.
Cora tries to find some dristraction by mapping trees, which connects her to her late father. And then there's the budding hope of friendship, and maybe even a glimmer of stability.

This is quite an unusual read. At sometimes I found it even a bit weird. The story and synopsis got my interest and it started of quite interesting. Then it became somewhat difficult to follow at many points. The most interesting part of it was them being homeless and how and if they would find somewhere stable to live in the next place and eventually a place of their own in the end. The part with the trees and everything came over to me like fantasy. Somehow I just couldn't follow that part and it was quite unclear where or what was happening.

Overall I found this a book that had and interesting main topic, but it got a little lost in storyline that wasn't worked out in all of the parts or maybe it was just not my cup of tea.

A heart wrenching and heartwarming story of a single mom and her two daughters struggling together to deal with the changes in their lives after losing dad. They move frequently and finally become homeless when Cora's mom seeks refuge with an old childhood friend, but that's not the end of the story. They just keep trying to find their place in the world. The kids are good kids, albeit kids who make mistakes. What kids don't? Mom is a strong and capable woman who continually works to make things better for her girls. This is a family that loves each other and tries, even when it's hard, to do the best they can for each other. I can't recommend this book enough! Truly heartwarming!

Homelessness is an important topic for youth fiction. Most of us will never experience it so wee need insight to give us a measure of sensitivity and understanding .What makes this one stand out to me is the time frame. Most of the books about homeless families I've read are about the newly homeless. We see an extreme situation, lost jobs and a few months of desperation. In this book we see a family in persistent homelessness. We see rotating shelters, temporary apartments, couch-surfing. We see the struggle of a single parent with a low paying job who can never get her feet under her. There are no simple solutions to their trouble, just patience. The narrative is a bit scattered, so not the easiest to follow.

A great novel, for middle school students, dealing with the sad reality of homelessness and a special needs sibling. I will definitely recommend this one to out media coordinator!

Middle schooler Cora, her Mexican-American mom, and younger sister, Adare, are homeless. After her father died, she and her family have lived in a series of temporary homes and shelters in Brooklyn, New York, while her mother tries to make ends meet at an hourly retail job, giving up her art to keep her family going. Adare sustained brain damage at birth, so Cora must look after her when their mother isn't around. When they get back to their room at the shelter and discover it's been broken into, the family heads to Cora's mom's childhood friend, Willa, a successful lawyer with an apartment of her own, hoping to stay until a better, safer, placement comes through. Cora loves life in Willa's stable home, but the girls' mother is frustrated by what she sees as Willa's meddling. Meanwhile, at school, Cora struggles with math and bullies, and meets a friend named Sabina, who lives on a houseboat and was homeschooled until this school year. Cora has both parents' passions within her; she keeps her father's tree diary with her and searches for a special tree that her father wrote about, paired with her mother's artistic talent - with an arborial bent. She has the stress of caring for Adare, the stress of being homeless, and being bullied.

Just Under the Clouds is narrated in Cora's voice; author Melissa Sarno creates a strong, moving narrative where we meet a family that often falls through the cracks in our society: the working poor. Cora's mother, Liliana, is working at a job that doesn't cover the cost of living for a family of three, let alone in metro New York, and her daughters are in school, clean, and fed, if not full. It's a tale of poverty, grief, empathy, and hope. The book addresses childhood stress, which comes with long-lasting fallout, and caring for a special needs child, and how poverty affects those children receiving necessary services to help them. It's a sensitive, painful look in our own backyards and courtyards, our own classrooms and workplaces, and deserves a space on bookshelves and in readers' hands. Pair this with 1958's The Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie Savage Carson, and ask readers how things have changed - and how they've stayed the same - over 60 years. Start a booktalk by asking your readers, "How would you feel if you lived in a place that wasn't safe to go to alone?"

I really enjoyed this story, but it made me think that so many books that are being published now are devoid of subtlety. I would argue that the story was unnecessarily harsh. So many of the lessons that this book was striving to convey could have been shown without the harshness of the plot. Still, the cover was enticing enough to make me want to buy this book. Also, the story is one that I have put on my book list to give to teachers when they ask for books on diversity and empathy. This book will fit the need for both. An important topic, but I wish that some of the plot could have been portrayed differently without the harshness.

A definite add to my collection. Your heart goes out to Cora as she tries to deal with all the difficulties in her life at such a young age. It would be a great read aloud with a lot of discussion points. I just love the character of Sabine. She’s quirky but she’s also kind and stands up for what is right. She’s the perfect friend for Cora. “Sabine, even when you’re standing on your head, I like you a gazillion times better than anybody right side up.”

I had the opportunity to read a digital ARC from NetGalley of this middle grade novel. This book gives readers so much to think about. Cora, her special-needs sister, and her mother are homeless after the sudden death of her father. They have to move to different shelters all the time, many of them not very safe or pleasant. Cora struggles academically, socially, and emotionally as she has to deal with bullying, moving around so often, and missing her father. All she has left to remember her father is his Tree Book, which he used to identify trees in the community.
Sadly, many kids in our communities and schools experience homelessness. I think this book and others like it help young readers develop empathy and respect for their neighbors that are affected by poverty. This book could help start some great discussions about what makes a home, ways to respond to bullying, and ways to support friends that might be experiencing the things that Cora experiences. This book would be appropriate for middle grade kids in grades 4 – 8.

Just under the clouds is an honest heartfelt account of the gray areas relating to homelessness and a family seeking to get back on their feet and finding their independence.

Not many middle grade novels talk about homelessness. Still fewer take the perspective of a child experiencing homelessness. Here, Cora and her family shuffle from one questionable shelter to another, or between friends' couches. She watches her sister, Adare, and she waits for her mother. There's no long-term stability--only a daily life of right-now. Right now, her mother is working. Right now, Adare wants to take off her shoes and run. Right now, they have a teapot and windowsill treasures. There's no way to think about what will happen later.

Cora manages by mapping trees, which connects her to her late father. And then there's the budding hope of friendship, and maybe even a glimmer of stability. This story is quietly realistic, giving readers either a window into a different life or a much-needed mirror of their own.

While contemporary is not generally my cup of tea, there need to be more books like this. There are very few books, especially MG books, that deal with the issues of homelessness despite the fact that many, many, many children are homeless. Cora is a very real character, and her struggles and triumphs felt authentic. Her relationship with her sister, Adare, who was deprived of oxygen at birth, was at time sweet and frustrating as Cora became frustrated with her and with how people perceived her sister. However, the pacing was a little slow for me. This is good book for anyone who enjoys contemporary novels and for fans of Crenshaw.

I like the last sentence of the description by the publisher "Just Under the Clouds will take root." It is heart breaking and sweet and I cannot help but root for these characters. Cora, as the big sister who must be older than she wants to be has so much hurt and pain that she must swallow and I just wanted to yell at the mother to wake up!!! I know that when adults are sad and barely holding it together, it is ever more difficult for children. I also know that when adults cannot get their sadness under control, sometimes other adults need to step in to take care of the children, especially as they leave middle school and go to high school. I just felt like if the mom didn't really look at Cora, and try to understand what she was hiding, she would lose her within a few years.



Perhaps that is why this story got so rooted in me. I could see the future for this little family and I just hoped that by the end of the book, I would be reassured that the future I could see was not going to come to pass. That kind of dread, waiting for the third strike, makes this kind of reading both gripping and daunting.



This is a solid middle level read that will appeal to both males and females. I personally chose this to fulfill my Goodreads summer June challenge for It's the End of the World: Read a book about the end of the world as we know it. For Cora, this is the end of the world. Her floating, untethered existence, her feet anchored when all she wants to do is climb, the letters that do not turn into numbers, the loss of a father, these are all part of Cora living at the end of the world. This is not a dystopia. This is real life shoving your head under the water.


Digital advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review

Just Under the Clouds is a sweet poignant YA novel about a young girl and her family. They are homeless due to unfortunate circumstances. The narrator is the main character Cora, a 12 year old girl who is struggling. Beautifully written with believable characters.

This weekend, I had the immense pleasure of reading a soon-to-be-released book. One of my favorite things about book blogging is getting to read amazing books before they come out, and Sarno’s Just Under the Clouds is exactly that.

Always think in threes and you’ll never fall, Cora’s father told her when she was a little girl. Two feet, one hand. Two hands, one foot. That was all Cora needed to know to climb the trees of Brooklyn.

But now Cora is a middle schooler, a big sister, and homeless. Her mother is trying to hold the family together after her father’s death, and Cora must look after her sister, Adare, who’s just different, their mother insists. Quick to smile, Adare hates wearing shoes, rarely speaks, and appears untroubled by the question Cora can’t help but ask: How will she find a place to call home?

After their room at the shelter is ransacked, Cora’s mother looks to an old friend for help, and Cora finally finds what she has been looking for: Ailanthus altissima, the “tree of heaven,” which can grow in even the worst conditions. It sets her on a path to discover a deeper truth about where she really belongs.

Just Under the Clouds will take root in your heart and blossom long after you’ve turned the last page.

Just Under the Clouds is middle-grade fiction, which I don’t usually read, but as I’m switching out of the music room and into the English classroom, I’m making a concerted effort to fix that. And something I’ve realized as I’m making that effort? A good book is a good book–regardless of its intended audience–is a good book.

Just Under the Clouds intrigued me from the start. Cora’s voice is authentic. It feels real and it feels like the voice of a young teenager/preteen. So often in fiction, children speak too much like adults. I’m guilty of this in my own writing, as well. But as someone who spends several hours a day with teenagers, I know how teens should talk. I know the thoughts that young teens have every day. I know how they function. And it’s clear that Sarno does, as well. (Or she has a really good editor. But I’m going to give Sarno the credit here.)

Cora’s story is sad. From the opening of the book it’s sad and heavy and there is little hope. Cora finds the beautiful things in life and in nature, but at the end of the day, it’s apparent that Cora and her family are returning home to a shelter, to temporary housing. Cora is still mourning the death of her father. Cora isn’t doing well in school. And she is forced to play surrogate parent to her younger sister with an unstated mental exceptionality. (I assume she is on the autism spectrum, but it’s never explicitly stated.) It was tough to read, even as an adult. But it was important.

Something I really love about Just Under the Clouds is that it’s a story that needs to be told. It’s important to be told. Sarno has given a voice to people who don’t typically have a voice in fiction. And she’s done it masterfully. She’s done it artfully. And she’s done it in such a way that the readers are able to put themselves in Cora’s shoes. The reader is able to feel empathy—not pity—for Cora and her family.

“Home is more than a place. It is a feeling. Of warmth and security. Of love and stability. That no matter what we face out there, in here, we will always be looked after.”

The opening letter of this book—written by Julia Maguire, an editor at Knopf—tells the reader from the beginning that this book is about finding home. And that home is about a lot more than just having somewhere to sleep at night. This, alone, is an important lesson for anybody to learn. As a teacher, I know many, many students who do not feel at home in their own houses. Safety, security, and stability are just as important as having a roof over your head.

Just Under the Clouds opens in the middle of Cora’s story, which is something I really love. I love when the book opens and the reader is thrown into the fray of day-to-day life. I don’t like exposition. I don’t like back story. Eventually I want it, but not at once. I want to love the characters before I learn why they’re the people that they are.

Cora starts the book in a tree, watching her little sister, Adare. When her mother calls, she quickly descends and prepares to meet her mom, with Adare in tow. Except Adare is holding her breath and refuses to let it out. From Cora’s commentary, it appears that this is a regular occurrence. And this is a theme that runs throughout the book. The breath holding is important and it matters.

Another thing I love about Sarno’s writing is how everything matters. Everything in this story is important and returns later. She’s very much like J.K. Rowling that way. She’s a very smart storyteller.

As the story unfolds, we see Cora fail math. This is not uncommon in students—even brilliant students—whose needs aren’t being met. Maslow theorized that students had to have their needs of food and security and stability met before any learning could take place. And after seven years in the classroom, I believe he was onto something.

We also see Cora make her first true friend, a drifter of a very different nature named Sabina. Sabina grew up on a houseboat, floating from port to port, existing in her family unit and never attending public school. Her life is very unlike Cora’s. Her life is very like Cora’s.

Just Under the Clouds is peppered with little hints of the issues that come with homelessness, issues that don’t occur to most people. In the middle of the story, Adare and Cora are enjoying an after-school snack. When Adare doesn’t finish her peanut better, Cora feels obligated to eat it, merely so it won’t go to waste. This very subtle detail hit me hard. This is real life. And this is real life every day for students I come into contact with daily.

This is daily life for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. It’s heartbreaking.

But stories like this offer hope.

I’m excited to stock this book in my classroom library. Many of my students have never considered what life is like on “the other side.” Most of the students I teach have never been homeless or had want for anything. They’ve never missed a meal or spent a night in temporary housing. And that’s okay. But because they’ve never had these experiences, chances are they’ve never reflected on experiences like this. It’s their privilege.

Before anybody gets their feathers ruffled: yes, I believe in privilege. I believe I’m privileged. I believe that everybody has varying degrees of privilege. And I think it’s important to understand and identify our innate privilege. Everybody’s is different. Everybody’s brings something unique and special to our society.

But it’s there. It’s real. It’s a thing that has to be acknowledged. It’s so well-written; it will make a great read for any middle grade reader, or a fantastic read aloud to younger readers. Take this opportunity to educate yourself and your children about the issues that others face.

I’m excited to share this book with you and with my students. I think Sarno has told a story that’s important.

Just Under the Clouds by Melissa Sarno will be available June 5, 2018 at all major book retailers. Pick yourself up a copy ASAP.

Plucky’s rating?

4 out of 5 stars.