Marisol Rainey is like many quiet, book loving girls I know. She has BIG thoughts, but doesn't follow them up with big actions. She's sensitive and quirky and knows herself. She names inanimate objects, she enjoys silent movies, and she has a beef with Peppina, everyone's favorite tree. She has a fabulous friend in Jada, who knows when to let Marisol be Marisol.


Kelly's main character is so utterly relatable, that many readers will find a bit of themselves in Marisol. At 160 pages, this is the perfect book for those just jumping into to middle grade novels. This would make a perfect book for our annual Battle of the Books competition. Marisol Rainey is much more enjoyable than "a bowl of cold oatmeal".

I loved Marisol - from her cats named after foods to her conversations with Peppina, the magnolia in her backyard. Peppina is the perfect climbing tree, unless you're afraid to climb up up up - and then she's just a nemesis. I loved the artwork interspersed through the story and I really loved Marisol's voice. I've already started recommending this to students.

Marisol Rainey is afraid of falling and her biggest desire is to climb Peppina, the "perfect tree" in her backyard. Marisol named Peppina like she names other objects in her life; the car, the refrigerator, and her bike. With the support of her best friend, Jada, Marisol imagines and creates and has adventures. But can Jada help Marisol climb Peppina? Can Marisol find the courage inside of herself?
This book will resonate with elementary grade students. Marisol and Jada a relatable and young readers will find much in common with both girls.

I absolutely loved this book—wonderful friendships and family relationships. Marisol is very relatable. I also loved the charming illustrations.

I really enjoyed reading Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey. I loved how she named everything, including her best friend's bicycle! I really liked the relationship between Marisol and her best friend and her family. There wasn't a huge focus on her relationship with her brother, but I really liked that even though they teased each other you could tell they were actually close. Marisol may have her quirks that make her unique, but at the same time she was just a girl living her life like every other girl out there. I think that this is a story that kids will be able to connect with and I highly recommend it to others.

Even though there isn't much plot, you want to keep reading just to know what Marisol is thinking. Marisol's character development is so exact.

The author really painted the scenes--I could see Peppina and Marisol’s world just as they are! The illustrations are very sweet though I did not read from a finalized copy and there’s more art to come.

Eight year old Marisol loves silent movies, lumpia, cats, and naming inanimate objects with her best friend, Jada. They have named everything, from their bikes, to Mom's car, and even the Magnolia tree, Peppina, which everyone except Marisol loves to climb. It is possible that classmate Evie Smythe, girl who constantly lets Marisol know her life is better, may have given Maribel the resolve to climb Peppina. At 160 pages, this is a perfect character driven easier chapter book. Thank you HarperCollins and Netgalley for the arc.

This was a sweet story where nothing really big and life changing happens but you feel Marisol's anxiety and worry about bad things happening. The most eventful part of the story is Marisol climbing a tree but to know what she was thinking and what is took makes this a big deal.

An imaginative child learns to share and overcome her fear of climbing creatively. It's a story of friendship and family that will warm your heart!

I really enjoyed this story of Marisol Rainey, who is scared of many things including climbing the tree in her back yard. Despite her catalogue of fears, Marisol is a well-rounded character, with a knack for her local claw machine and an interest in silent movies of a bygone era, and her family and friends are equally fleshed out. The stakes never rise above the level of tree-climbing fears, but there's never any question that these seemingly low stakes are a big deal to Marisol.

As new middle grade books have leaned toward older readers, more grown-up topics, and higher page counts, they have left a bit of a gulf between them and beginning chapter books, so I'm pleased to find a title that fits nicely in that gap. The illustrations and gentle story also contribute to this fit, and overall I think this will definitely find readers in my library.

Low-key, short, sweet, funny, and charming chapter book that many kids will see themselves in. As the narrator notes, even if you're not scared of climbing trees, everyone knows what it's like to be scared! (Speaking for myself--climbing trees was one of the few things I wasn't scared of as a kid!) I also love the relationship between Marisol and her best friend Jada, which is a beautiful portrayal of how young girls can support each other. A winner all the way around.

“Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey” is a sweet and endearing illustrated chapter book about 8-year-old Marisol who is afraid of everything, especially of climbing Peppina, the magnolia tree in her Louisiana backyard. Marisol takes her time giving names to inanimate objects, and she has a very vivid imagination. She loves silent movies, cats (but she doesn’t want to be one), and her bold and daring best friend, Jada. Kids will love reading about Marisol’s multiethnic family and her journey toward tackling her fears. “Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey” will appeal to fans of Ivy + Bean and Stella Diaz and will be a welcome addition to elementary school and classroom libraries.

An excellent lower MG title. Young readers will learn a variety of new things along with Marisol as well as see an example of facing your fears. Highly recommended.

Another Erin Entrada Kelly masterpiece! Heartwarming account of a young girl who so badly wants to overcome her fear of climbing Peppita, her tree. I love the author note at the beginning. Readers will easily relate to their own fears and the journey to develop the courage to face them.

Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is like when your favorite cool aunt sits next to you on the porch steps and listens to all your goofy childish stories and makes you feel like the most important person in the world at that moment. it is a chapter book, just 160 pages long, but it is so much more than that. Erin Entrada Kelly writes books that tell kids that their fears, their worries, their ideas are valid, and I'm delighted that younger readers will hear this message too. Marisol is a quirky kid with normal kid fears, worries, and moods. She is afraid of many things, but the awesome climbing tree in her backyard looms tall as the embodiment of all the fears she must face. Fears that separate her from her best friend, and that make her feel small. Children will relate to these feelings, as well as Marisol's quirky side - the way she names everything, and how she chooses their names. She is an endearing and funny character, and I hope we get more books about her and the way she tackles the problems that all kids face.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this sweet book.

Erin Entrada Kelly is one of the most relevant voices in middle grade right now, crafting numerous character-driven novels that evoke emotions while still having compelling adventure plots. Because of this, I was very excited to see that she was publishing a book for a slightly younger audience.

This books is told in a third person perspective but focuses exclusively on the title character, Marisol. A lot of the kid-lit I read is told from the first-person perspective, so it is nice to introduce kids to more third-person narration. In this case, I think it made it more difficult for Marisol's feelings to come across in a compelling way. The book was ok, focusing on Marisol's desire to climb a tree, but something fell flat. Marisol is very relatable, the stories and chapters are relatable for kids, but I didn't feel drawn into the story at all.

I really love how Erin Entrada Kelly is exploring novels with lower-level text. Her ideas and brilliance with story telling should absolutely be accessible for younger readers. Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is a book that my daughter and I both enjoyed. Let me tell you, I was so excited to read something with her that wasn't featuring unicorns and mermaids.

Marisol has a lot of quirks. She has fears. She is a child that my daughter and I were able to have great discussions about. We talked a lot about how Marisol was scared of climbing the tree. We talked a lot about the things other kids said to Marisol because of her fear.

This book is a wonderful characterization book for any teacher or a parent wanting to give their early reader a challenging and deeper book to read.

This is a book about facing your fears and working towards overcoming your anxiety at a young age. I wish this book had existed when I was in elementary school! Marisol Rainey is a sweet 8 year old with a loving family, but not many friends and a lot of fears and anxieties. Her biggest fear is climbing Peppina, the Magnolia tree in her backyard that has been proclaimed by all the neighborhood kids as the best climbing tree around. This is a shorter chapter book perfect for elementary students who will fall in love with the adorable and relatable Marisol Rainey as she faces her fears with the help of her best friend Jada and the support of her family.

A sweet, yet powerful book about a young girl named Marisol, whose fears and anxieties many children will be able to relate to. It’s written in such a natural way, that it’s reassuring to read her thoughts.

Can she. overcome her fears with help from family, a great friend and determination? You’ll have to read to see what happens.

I especially loved the authors connection note at the beginning and how there were words from different languages sprinkled throughout the book that also explained the meaning of them as you read.

Thank you NetGalley, Erin and publisher for the e-ARC!

Marisol Rainey struggles with feeling confident in life. In this book, by Erin Entrada Kelly, Marisol has a very vivid imagination to the world around her. Her best friend, Jada, can do something that Marisol struggles with and wishes that she could do. Jada can climb, Peppina, a huge magnolia tree. In this children's book we are able to experience what is going on in Marisol's head as she tries to overcome her fears.

As an avid reader of children's literature I did not find this book very captivating. I feel that it lacked excitement and humor that children often look for in books that they read. This is not my favorite Kelly book by far.

However, I also try to find positives in books that I read and think about how I could use this in the classroom. This book has great examples of figurative language and personification. You could definitely use this as a mentor text in lessons. The chapters are short and lend themselves as teaching tools. The theme is also strong and can be used to help students develop a meaning of theme which is hard for students to grasp in elementary school.