A lovely coming of age story about finding yourself, trusting your friends, and leaning on your family.

This book captures the constant intense emotions of middle school and figuring out who you are and where you fit. I'm so glad I'm not in middle school anymore. I'm also glad there are now stories for the 8-12 set that are about girls liking girls.

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World is a kind, sweet, much-needed book about a young girl's world turned upside-down and all kinds of twisted about and the questions she had. Questions about where she fits in with her growing family. Questions about where she fits in when so many girls her age are thinking about boys when she's not. Questions about if it's okay, as a girl, to have those feelings for other girls.

Ivy is a caring and creative girl, a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other, ready to draw the world around her. Or at least how she sees in. Right now, her world is a little messy and scattered, but that's what happens when a tornado goes through town and smashes Ivy's house to bits. Especially when her family is already off-kilter with new babies to navigate around and an older teen sister she's not so sure about right now. Ivy has questions, questions about a bunch of things, but everyone around seems too busy or tired or angry. Then Ivy's notebook goes missing, the one with her drawing of two girls holding hands, and she starts wondering where it is. Who's seen it. Who's guessed Ivy's latest and most confusing secret: that she's got a crush on another girl.

There's a distinct lack of LGBTQ representation in middle grade, which is so unfortunate considering there are kids that young who are starting to wonder about why they feel certain ways. Why they don't have crushes on the same celebrities or classmates that their friends do. Why they don't have crushes at all. It makes me happy knowing that this book exists, that this book will be found by kids who have similar questions and feelings to Ivy's. That they'll read about Ivy and her family and know that that there's no right or wrong way to be but themselves, that there's always someone out there ready to support them and love them, and that they don't have to have everything all figured out right away. I would recommend this to so many people, to ten, eleven, and twelve-year-old kids, to teachers and librarians and parents who interact with kids every day, because there are bound to be kids like Ivy out there searching for themselves in the pages of a book.

I love that not everything works out the way Ivy hopes it will. Most middle grade novels end in the best possible way for the protagonist so it's nice to occasionally see a more realistic resolution. And getting what she wanted wasn't the point here; it was for Ivy to be able to acknowledge a truth about herself. That's what makes this a more universal novel. Many of us have something that makes us feel alone, that there is no place for us in the world. And while this is a somewhat abstract concept, Blake does a good job of guiding young readers to that conclusion.

There is so much going on in this novel, and it all works perfectly. Generally speaking, it would have been so easy for this to turn into a complete mess (natural disaster coupled with family issues AND as a bonus, there's the fact that Ivy thinks she may like girls and doesn't feel like she has anyone she can talk to about it) but it really works. (Also, sometimes everything really does fall apart all at the same time.)

It's impossible not to love Ivy. She is selfish sometimes (but so is everyone) and she isn't really good at sharing her feelings but she is also sweet and she tries. (Those two things can get you pretty far, right?)

Her family is not doing so well (twin babies plus their house has been literally destroyed, so there's a lot of stress going on) and Ivy seems to be taking the brunt of it. Yes, her older sister is now helping a lot with the babies and that's its own struggle but Ivy seems to continually get lost in the shuffle. And she's old enough to realize that speaking up would just make everything worse, so she realizes she's being selfish but she can't quite move past it.

I just really love this book. It works on every level, and is an amazing story. Highly recommended.

Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World was a fascinating read. It covered many relevant topics such as homelessness, divorce, cancer, a fearful journey of coming to terms with one’s sexuality and the potential rejection by family/friends.
This book should be in every library. It’s important to have stories like this to give middle graders hope and to understand that they are not alone. As an educator, I would have loved to have stories like this in my classroom library not only to hand out to students but also parents. I believe this story will have a positive impact on those who read it. Highly recommended!