I am a school counselor and consider myself an advocate for children. This is a heart-wrenching story not just because it was well told, but because it is so true for so many children. This book will offer a wonderful window for children and I think more importantly adults - a window into the realities of addiction, family separation, and more. That being said educators and parents should be thoughtful in recommending this to young readers as this is a story of trauma. I will certainly be recommending this to students and colleagues!

I absolutely loved Arango's debut Iveliz Explains It All, so Something Like Home was HIGHLY anticipated.

Like Iveliz, Laura is facing real issues that reflect the experiences of young people. Arango offers vital representation you don't often see in middle grade fiction - foster care with kinship due to parental drug addiction. This novels-in-verse opened my eyes to what it might mean for young folks who live with an a family member who is not their parent and what the "reason" might be. How it can deeply impact the child as they internalize guilt for adult choices and behaviors.

As expected from Arango, Something Like Home helps adult readers come to many realizations about the experiences of young people. I learned more about what it's like having sickle cell disease and the difficulty of maintaining friendships when you're constantly in and out of the hospital. Bird facts, so many cool things shared through Laura's affinity and interest. The process for training a dog to be a therapy dog. Queer rep (Laura's mom was disowned by her family because she was dating a girl.) Normalizing therapy - focus on group/family therapy.

My biggest takeaway was that even as adults make tough (but ultimately the best) decisions for young people, we should validate their feelings and give them as much agency of their lives as we can. The adults in Laura's life could have easily and should have sat her down and explained everything instead of just ferrying her around.

Overall, I really enjoyed the content - but the writing didn't hit the same way Iveliz Explains It All did. Felt more simplistic/less poetic? Maybe because Laura is younger but only by a year. I also wanted more on her parents and Benson. But that could be my adult reader brain. Maybe I'm just being nitpicky (ignore me lol). This is an EXCELLENT book for the middle school classroom (5th to 6th) and there are definitely children who NEED this book to know their feelings are okay and they're not alone in their experience. That it's okay if they're family dynamics are different from others.

Laura Rodgríguez Colón is staying with her aunt, Titi Silva, who is a doctor and lives in a very nice and orderly home, a vast difference from Laura’s home life. Laura's mother and father ran a food truck, but struggled with addiction after becoming addicted to pain meds prescribed for injuries incurred from a car crash. They are both now in rehab, and Janet, the social worker, is helping Laura adjust to living with an aunt she never knew til now. Laura also is dealing with guilt. She feels that everything is her fault because she was the one who called 911 when her parents were unresponsive, and that call started the wheels turning that led to-their separation. On top of all this she has to change schools and is attending Riverview Elementary School. She doesn't try to make friends, but classmate Benson is persistently friendly and a friendship ensues. Benson has trouble connecting to classmates because he is frequently ill and hospitalised with sickle cell anemia. Laura’s other friend is the librarian, Mrs. Elsa, who sees that Laura is struggling with reading and turns her on to graphic novels, which she enjoys. One day Laura finds an abandoned dog, and brings him home, and Titi Silvia lets her keep it. She names him Sparrow.

Laura doesn’t understand why her parents don’t call her or write. She regularly writes heartfelt letters to them in rehab, but they never respond. She later learns it’s because the doctors feel that Laura will distract them from their progress. So she gets the big idea that she will train Sparrow to be a therapy dog and use that as her excuse to get in to see them.

When Laura’s guardian ad litem, facilitates a a call with her parents, Laura is devastated when they don’t show up to connect with her. It gets worse when it turns out they have checked themselves out of rehab. Here we witness the power drugs have on individuals who will turn their backs on the children they love. As things go downhill, Laura begins to warm up to her aunt and realizes that she might be with her for some time.

There is so much content packed in this novel in verse… birds, sickle cell anemia, therapy dogs, addiction, rehab, family dysfunction, anxiety, therapy, foster care system.

This story is very realistic, sad, hopeful, and heartwarming.

I finished this beautiful story this morning and am still digesting. It's hard to put into words the thoughts and feelings of an eleven year old child who made a decision that would change the trajectory of her life forever, but Arango does it flawlessly. Laura feels like she has betrayed the people she loves most and the guilt is intense. She is sent to live with an aunt she doesn't know, attend a new school with new people, forced to learn about a culture her parents have basically abandoned, and is expected to be fine with it. She struggles with wanting her old life back while secretly liking parts of her new life. This book resonates with those parts of our hearts that we lock away because they are painful.

During the last few years, my fifth graders can't get enough of novels-in-verse. I can't wait to introduce them to Laura, Benson, and Sparrow in SOMETHING LIKE HOME! Forced to live with her aunt after calling the police on her parents, Laura believes it was her fault that she was separated from her parents and placed with an aunt that doesn't know or love her. While her parents are working on their addictions at a rehab facility, Laura is forced to move on with her life in an apartment that is not her home. Away from her parents for the first time ever, Laura begins working on herself. She begins working on her relationship with her aunt, confides in a new friend, and rescues a stray dog that becomes her world. Will her aunt's apartment ever feel like a home when all she wants to do is be back home with her parents? Andrea does such a nice job addressing hard topics in a sensitive, delicate way that will have readers rooting for Laura, loving Benson, and wishing they had their own Sparrow! Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced digital copy. I can't wait to purchase a copy for my fifth graders.

This is a highly readable novel about a number of very difficult subjects including the foster care system, parents that abuse drugs, recovery, and ethnic identity. The topics are addressed sensitively but realistically and always center the child narrator's perspective.

Something Like Home
by Andrea Beatriz Arango
Pub Date 12 Sep 2023
Random House Children's,Random House Books for Young Readers
Children's Fiction| Middle Grade


Random House Children's and Netgalley provided me with a copy of Something Like Home for review:


No matter what the adults say, Laura Rodrguez Colón will live with her parents again. Can you blame her? When you're a new kid at school, it's hard to make friends. While staying at her aunt's house is okay, it's not the same as being in her own home.



Hence, finding a puppy seems like fate to Laura. Maybe she will be allowed to visit her parents if she trains the puppy to be a therapy dog. It is possible that the dog will help them get better and things will finally return to normal.



Even though you live with your aunt, how do you explain that you're technically a foster kid? How do you explain that you're not where you belong, and you just want to go home?


I give Something Like Home five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Something Like Home is a beautiful middle grade novel written in verse. Sweet without being sappy, the book introduces younger readers to the realities of foster care -- I really enjoyed the secondary plot about Laura's friendship with Benson, a classmate who has sickle cell disease.

Something Like Home by @andreabeatrizarango tugged at my heart in more ways than one!

A story centered around family separation and foster/kinship care, we meet Laura in the midst of an abrupt transition from being taken from her family by social services to living with her aunt. The story is told in verse and letters Laura writes to her parents at a rehabilitation facility. Desperate to return to her family, her home, and her old school, Laura refuses to unpack, self-bargains, and has difficulty building trust with new friends and adults in her life.

One day on her way home from school she finds an abandoned puppy and identifies her mission, to train the puppy to be a therapy dog so that she can be reunited with her family. This is a beautiful middle grade book embracing the gray reality of family separation and finding acceptance in the unknown. I so admire Andrea’s writing for how she taps into the mind of middle grade readers and writes about the experiences of trauma in the body from a child’s perspective. I identified with Laura and her puppy as an adoptee, “Because how different are we, really? Both abandoned. Both trying to exist.”

I also loved reading from the perspective of being a new puppy parent. Andrea’s book, out September 2023, is truly a special read and will be accessible for middle grade readers to love and appreciate in more ways than one.

One of my favorite middle-grade books was "Pictures of Hollis Woods" by Patricia Reilly Giff. It shows that a family doesn't always comprised of a mom and dad.

"Something Like Home" is the journey of a young girl. named Laura, reconciling with the fact that one phone call she made resulted in being separated from her parents. She is forced to live with an aunt she doesn't know in a school she's never attended. Readers will follow Laura reconcile with her guilt, make new relationships, learn how to advocate for herself, and learn that change isn't always a bad thing.

Class Read Aloud Recommendation! 🗣️

I loved everything about this book! It was emotional, but not heavy. A little sad, but also so hopeful. Andrea pieces together the reality of foster/kinship care in such a touching way. Moreover, Laura is such an endearing main character to follow. She’s not perfect by any means, but at her core she’s such a sweetheart. The absolute best part of this book was Benson. 🥹 I won’t go into detail about him because I think everyone should experience him without context, but I will say that he is kindness personified.

The icing on the cake was all the graphic novels that Laura reads throughout the book. Her librarian truly has the best taste. The author @andreabeatrizarango has a super cute Instagram post featuring all the librarian’s recommendations and I highly suggest checking it out.

This is a classroom must have! The characters show lots of growth and it has representation for kids who receive intervention and kids with chronic illness (sickle cell).

This one drops September 12th so pre-order or request it from your local library now! 🫶🏽

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Children's Books, and Andrea Beatriz Arango for the opportunity to read this e-ARC!

This novel in verse was a beautiful story about a girl who has to wrestle with the decision she made to call 911 on her own parents. Laura gets taken in by her aunt while her parents go to rehab. It's a rough transition and Laura wants to do everything she can to be reunited with her parents. When she takes in an abandoned dog and names it Sparrow, the two start a journey of healing and self-discovery about what home can be.

5/5 stars! This was a heartwarming story and I will definitely be adding it to my list for my classroom library.

I have rewritten my review multiple times because words don't seem to work to review this book. It was an absolute gem, that's for sure. Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango features Laura, a young girl taken away from her parents by foster and sent to live with an aunt she doesn't know. It's a novel written in verse where this young girl struggles to adjust to her new situation and warm up to her aunt. In this book, we get to the topic of foster, casa workers, individual and family therapy, making new friends, and being the daughter of two adults who are addicted to drugs but still genuinely do love their daughter. It is not a light read, but it is perfectly written so kids Laura's age can read it and relate to it or aspects of it or, if anything, see that not every family looks the same and be more understanding to their struggling peers.

It opened my eyes to so much more. I loved the story, loved the ending, and love the fantastic character development that is present. I 1000% would recommend this book be in every school, library, and people's home, and I gave it five stars—another win for Andrea Beatriz Arango.

I was speechless and had tears in my eyes when I finished Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango. This middle grade novel in verse is absolutely incredible and offers a window and a mirror that I have not seen before in middle grade books. (Books that are windows offer readers a look into a life different from their own; mirror books are an opportunity for readers to see themselves reflected in the pages.)

As the story begins, we meet Laura, who is being moved in with her aunt by the Department of Social Services while her parents go to rehab. Laura and her family’s story unfolds throughout the book, and I am sure there are many similar stories unfolding everyday around our country.

Laura rescues a puppy she finds and decides to train it to be a therapy dog so she can visit her parents in rehab. The healing power of dogs is on full display…even though Laura’s plan to see her parents doesn’t quite pan out, she gets so much from Sparrow’s companionship and training him.

And we see the most beautiful example of friends accepting each other and their stories exactly as they are without judgement when Laura connects with Benson at school. What an amazing example for young readers.

Andrea Beatriz Arango needs to be an auto-buy middle grade author for y’all. Her first book, Iveliz Explains it All, blew me away, and here she has done it again. And I LOVE the accessibility and pace of a good novel in verse, which she has achieved twice now!

I think that for this story it shouldn't have been written in diary or audio form. In my opinion it makes ot harder to get into and connect with Laura and her dog.
It's a moving story and one that will leave you thinking about the characters long after this story is over.
I am glad the dog was there for Laura. She seems to be a sweet child and I did love in getting to know her.
A lot of this story I can relate to especially the forester care system because my parents were in it for years. At the time I really couldn't see it but after reading this book I can fully understand how these kids must've felt.
I found myself rooting for Laura. She is a great kid and I one who deserves a home with a family but sometimes things don't work out that way.
That's why I'm glad the dog was there for her. Animals are such a blessing. They know what we need and how we feel and sometimes all it takes is love from an animal to feel like home.

Laura Rodrigquez Colón carries guilt from a 911 call she made. That call, while saving her parents' lives, also dropped a bomb in the middle of her family, her home, and everything she's known. Now she lives in the custody of an estranged aunt, and Laura has to learn to trust a new home situation, make new friends, forgive herself, her family, and begin rebuilding relationships.
The author examines the way a home situation can have so many negative influences on a child's education, so the character struggles with reading. While intelligent, kind, and forgiving, she has to overcome one too many obstacles. The reader will squeeze a few tears out, but cheer for Laura as she learns to overcome adversity.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful novel in verse about the idea of home, a child dealing with her parent’s struggle with addiction, and of course dogs. Very moving, and the first middle grade novel I’ve read about rehab from a child’s POV.

This was a middle grade novel in verse. Being a foster mom, it was heart wrenching at times, to read Laura’s story. Fostering is near to my heart, as well as all the children who have to navigate it. It was nice seeing those children represented here.

Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango is a middle-grade novel in verse about Laura, a little girl who has to live with her aunt because her parents are forced to go to rehab. It is a quite heavy story that deals with topics of addiction of parents, the foster care system, feeling abandoned and out of place, and more. It tells the story of Laura living with her aunt and fighting against the fact that she can't live with her parents. She meets an injured dog who she gets to keep, and she tries to train him to be her therapy dog so she can visit her parents in the hospital.

As the story goes on, Laura starts making some new friends and gets close to her dog, but neither helps ease her loneliness. It is filled with a lot of emotion, grief, powerlessness, hopelessness, and so much more. While it's a middle-grade book, it doesn't sugar coat any of it, which makes for an intense reading experience.

I felt like the writing style isn't fully accessible for younger children because it is a bit complex sometimes and the pace is extremely slow. There was a lot of repetitiveness that took away from the impact of the story a bit, and I wished there were more elements to the story. I feel like kids might get bored while reading because of this and miss out on the important messages the book has to tell.

That being said, it is a very moving story filled with raw emotions and important themes I would highly recommend. I think some kids will feel really seen reading this (when they're ready to read a story like this), or even adults. So definitely pick it up if you like hard-hitting middle grade stories about what family means, finding belonging and joy when you feel lost in a life that feels hopeless.

First, I received this eARC in exchange for a review. Thank you to the publisher for letting me get an early copy.

This book is warmth and sweetness packaged into words! A necessary book that explores foster care and therapy dogs, this story will warm the hearts of kids and adults alike. The way Andrea handles the topic is with utmost care, something I know kids will greatly appreciate. The plot moves well, and the characters all had arcs that made sense. The protagonist, Laura, is a Puerto Rican diaspora kid, a contribution to diasporic narratives where the character's primarily language is English and has a tenuous relationship to Puerto Rico.

The nod to a local author was great! I can totally see Laura loving the book. (I can't say which because spoiler!).

I know this book will have a great trajectory. Can't wait to see people's responses come Sept. 2023!