Another inspirational novel from this writing team that tackles the subject of a young person living with a serious medical condition. The characters were realistically portrayed and the reader could easily identify with their struggles.

Flint, who is very interested in drawing comic books, is now usually called "Squint" by his classmates because he is suffering from a degenerative eye disease the affects his corneas and gives him very poor vision. His classmates, who used to be friendly, now bully him. When McKell suddenly starts talking to him, he is wary that her motives are also devious, but she is friendly and invites him on a hike. She is kind, and Flint soon finds out that it is because her brother suffers from progeria and has a YouTube channel where he challenges people to go out and do things that he can no longer do. When Flint's eyes become so bad that he is eligible for a cornea transplant, he is out of school for a while, and upon his return he realizes that McKell has been out, too. Her brother has passed away, and she struggles with her grief and loss. Flint has been trying to finish a comic to submit to a contest, but once his vision improves, he fears it isn't very good. McKell is also shy and beset with anxiety over her own talents. She writes and performs music with a ukulele. She and Flint spend more time together and encourage each other to break out of their boxes and take chances.

Strengths: Flint is being raised by his grandparents because his mother has opted out of raising him. There isn't a lot of money, and both grandparents work hard to take care of Flint's needs. There is a growing number of books with grandparents assuming parental roles, which mirrors what is going on in society. There are not many books about children with impaired sight (Although Vrabel has both A Blind Guide To Stinkville and A Bind Guide to Normal, and there is the classic Beverly Butler Light a Single Candle (1962), which captivated me when I was in middle school.) McKell's experience with loss is well done, and the inclusion of a character with progeria is interesting, even if we don't see much of him before he passes away.
Weaknesses: I found it hard to believe that Flint's classmates would be so insensitive, although I'm sure that there are places where this is absolutely how people treat others. We had a student with diminishing sight, and as far as I could tell her classmates were kind and remained friends with her. The trajectory of some of the relationships from friends to bullying is well explained, but it was sad. We also had a student who was deaf, and the other students were almost TOO interested in being friends with her and talking about her challenges.
What I really think: Definitely purchasing. Even though Flint struggles on so many levels, he keeps trying and is generally upbeat.

This book was delightful and had all the feels. It made me laugh and cry and smile the whole way through. The voice was spot on. The characters were adorable! I've never been a hormonal middle school boy, but being in Flint's head through this book, I imagine that's exactly how they are, it was fantastic.

Having Flint recite rules for middle school and rules for comic books, was an ingenious plot point. Not only were they entertaining, but they set the stage for us to see that sometimes, rules are made to be broken.

I loved the story with-in a story. Using Flint's comic book to mirror his hopes and his heartache was awesome. I especially appreciate though that the real story was real. They didn't give him a super hero ending, they taught that sometimes life doesn't go like you plan, and sometimes we're just as much as fault as the bad guy, but "At times, it is our weaknesses that can make us better, let our light out."

I loved this book!

This book is FANTASTIC!
You will learn some comic book rules, middle school rules, and Grandma and Grandpa rules.
PLUS if you join in the "Danny's Challenges" you will become a happier/better person.
LOVED IT! This is a MUST-READ for the whole family!

Great characters, great story. Perfect for middle grade readers. Dealing with personal challenges and friendships.

This is a fairly typical middle school friendship story with cool kids teasing uncool kids. There were a couple of big issues with Danny’s illness and Flint’s vision deteriorating that I think should have been delved into more deeply to help readers have more empathy for the characters. I LOVED Danny’s challenges because he put them out through a youtube channel. His positive energy and message created a movement with many followers.

Summer reading book review #3:

I just finished Squint by Chad Morris and Shelly Brown. I absolutely loved this book. The main characters are both amazing characters each dealing with their own individual challenges. Flint (known to everyone but his grandparents as Squint) has a rare eye disease. McKell is a new girl who is instantly popular, but there is so much more to her. This book shows readers what happens when you see things through someone else’s eyes. I could not put this book down. There is a little of everything in this book: perseverance, loss, grief, bullying, rules of middle school, friendship, empathy; it is a story reminding us to be kinder, braver, and more helpful. Readers who loved Wonder and the message of #choosekind will fall in love when they read this book when it comes out in October!!! This is a #mustread #middlegrade book. #summerreading

This story was compelling, well written, and moving. Squint is a flawed yet lovable character who has had his fair share of hard knocks. I love how the story is told from his POV and how his comic book stories mirror his experiences. The way he talks about rules of comics or rules of grandparents or rule of middle school is engaging and funny.

I love how Squint lives with Grandparents who have sacrificed and raised him and taught him with anecdotes and "old people" advice. The experiences Squint has in middle school are authentic and true to life. This book touches on abandonment, depression, illness, bullies, loss, grief, friendship, social media and much more. The story subtly gives the messages of forgiveness, bravery, empathy and doing what you know is right, despite what others think. I also love the message of being true to yourself.

There's so much to love about this story and so much to think about and discuss. I highly recommend it to anyone grades 4 and up.

I do not often give a book five stars, but I did for "Squint". First impressions: the cover is current, eye catching, and reflective of the story. I am a children's librarian, and I have noticed that middle school kids do not want to pick up books if they don't think the cover is cool enough, as in, "I don't want people to see me reading that book" if the cover is not up their standards. No worries with this cover.

Second impressions: The story was engaging throughout with characters that were realistic and believable. Reading different selections of the text reminded me of emotions and moments of being in middle school, but the book did not center around the awkwardness, bad memories, and moments where I wish I had acted differently. Instead, the text reminded me of the choices I made in middle school that I was proud of, like practicing my violin concertos, sitting with the kid at lunch that was alone, and doing my chores. I liked that this book encouraged the reader subtly to be their best self. That was told through the themes of forgiveness, quite courage, compassion, and doing hard things that ran through the story, with almost every character.

I also loved the gentle life lessons that the grandparents share with Squint, and the reader, throughout. They are excellent role models, and true heroes. The scene where Squint wants to quite writing comics, yet his grandfather encourages him to be proud of his drawings because they represent hard work was a gentle, but important moment. I also loved how Squint and McKell showed the reader how to be a good friend in middle school by caring about each other. Very few middle school books do that, in my opinion.

I will be purchasing this book for my library, and promoting it in next year's booktalks when I visit classrooms with my "Box of Books" and give kids a little commercial about all the books I have in the box which I then check out their teacher for the kids to read in their classroom when I leave. I will be recommending this book to fourth-8th graders. Thank you, Chad Morris and Shelly Brown, for this story.

Squint's real name is Flint, but he got his nickname because of the fact that he can't see very well. He doesn't have many friends, and uses his free time to finish the comic book he's working on so he can enter it into an upcoming contest.

McKell is the new girl in school and has a hidden talent of her own that she's shy about sharing. She takes a liking to Squint, and tries to ward off any kids who tease him about his eyesight. The two become great friends and learn a lot about themselves from each other.

I chose to read this book because of the cover and catchy title and once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I read it in just a few hours. This book touches on so many areas related to many middle school children today: sickness, loss, fear, bullying, friendship and perseverance. The most unique part of the book was how Flint aka Squint wrote a comic book throughout the story, which reflected his own personal desires and heartaches and his special friendship with McKell. Although the two came from different backgrounds, they realized that they weren't that different after all. I would recommend this book for 4th grade students and up and will use it in my college course next semester.

This was a wonderful book. I often look for books for my students that deal with bullying and other situations typical for a middle school aged children. This is probably the best one I have read. It is a fast paced story, it relates the events in the "real world" to a comic book, and most importantly...it doesn't preach.

The story tells of Flint, called Squint because of the eye disease that is taking his sight, and his unlikely friendship with a new girl at school, McKell, who is experiencing family difficulties of her own. As the story progresses, the friendship builds, and the two help each other work through many of the issues that have been heavy on them.

All of the characters in the story are very relatable, representing common cliques, socioeconomic levels, and family structures The story is believable and genuine; it teaches without blatantly showing that there are lessons to be learned from the book.

Overall, this was an excellent book that I am excited to use in my classroom. The wonderful story that includes comic book connections and YouTube references with be an entertaining and educational read for them.

How do you think you would feel if your favorite thing in the world is to draw comics but you have an eye disease that was causing you to go blind? Flint, or aka Squint as the bullies call him, used to play football and used to have a best friend. Now that he is losing his sight and has to wear big, thick glasses, he cannot play sports, and his best friend is no longer his best friend. The only thing he has is his comics, and he is very good at drawing. He wants to enter his comic into a contest and become the youngest person to win, but he is racing the clock. Can he finish and enter the contest before he loses his eyesight completely? He is also having to deal with bullies, and believe it or not, one of the bullies used to be his best friend. Flint has never felt more alone, until he meets McKell. She is new and hangs around with the bully group but she doesn't like they way they treat Flint. One day she sits at the lunch table with Flint because she has been issued a challenge. Flint keeps waiting for something bad to happen from the bullies, but nothing out of the ordinary happens. Can McKell actually want to be his friend or is it all just a colossal joke? Neither one of them know that their meeting is going to be life-changing. Do not miss Squint!

This story will make you laugh and cry. It is an incredible story of heartbreak, friendship, and not being afraid to be yourself. The ups and downs will keep you on your toes and make you want to go hug your best friend. Middle school is hard enough on its own, but having a disability makes it even harder. I love how Chad Morris & Shelly Brown show that bullies don't alway prevail, in real life or in the comic books. Everyone needs to read this thought-provoking book! It is fantastic!

I love the cover and title of this book. Middle school is hard enough but especially for a boy, who is losing his vision. But Flint, AKA Squint wants to be a famous comic book artist and write his own stories, but lacks confidence in believing in himself. Nothing has ever been easy for Squint and he's just a little skeptical, when a new girl named Mckell, tries to befriend him. What a great book for middle readers.

I think a part of me was just destroyed by Squint and his innocent voice.

Meet Flint Minnet, a young artist, striving to finish his comic book to enter a competition which he believes would change his life. He's suffering from a genetic eye disease called keratoconus, which forces him to wear multi-layer glasses and squint through them. Nicknamed as 'Squint' by his former friends and present bullies, Squint is struggling through middle-school without any friends. He's an excellent artist, albeit afraid to display his work. But when he meets McKell, the newest addition to the popular squad, he realizes some realities of life.

This book must be required reading for every child going through the sometimes uncomfortable essence of middle-school. Flint's story is important, and not often found in middle-grade literature. I haven't read a book that tackles bullying in such a subtle way as Morris and Brown does in this book. I loved how authentic and child-like Flint sounded. His voice managed to capture all the innocence of a curious 12 year old. The 'Middle School Rule' parts were so relatable. I loved how he would encounter something in his life and immediately get an idea for his comic book. I loved McKell and her rhymes, the way those two bonded over a common interest of being passionate. Flint's love for his grandparents and him fangirling over Danny's videos made my day.

I'd recommend this book to every child and adult out there. What makes me minus a star? Probably my own poor negligence in not finishing this book in a day and the stress of work that showed its ugly head while reading and hindered a little bit of my enjoyment. But overall, the best Middle-grade book I've read in awhile. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books from the authors.

Squint
by Chad Morris; Shelly Brown

Shadow Mountain Publishing

Shadow Mountain
Children's Fiction
Pub Date 02 Oct 2018


I am reviewing a copy of Squint through Shadow Mountain Publishing and Netgalley:


Flint loves to draw and he's trying to finish his comic book because he wants to be the youngest winner in the "Find a Comic Star" competition. He also needs to hurry because he has an eye disease that can make him go blind.


The new girl at school Mckell, immediately hangs out with the popular kids, but she does not like the way these kids treat Squint. Mckell finds him to be nice and quite talented. Mckell wants to get to know Squint but is unsure if it's worth the risk.


Mckell loves to write poetry and songs but she shares that talent with no one but her brother Danny whose dying of Progeria, but She finally finds the courage to share her talent with Squint with her brothers encouragement after he passes.

I give Squint five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I love getting to read really good middle grade books. And this is one of those!

I love the way these two authors work together to write books. Their characters are always amazing. And their plots are believable. If you haven’t yet read Mustaches for Maddie by them, you need to!

This whole book is written through the eyes of Flint. Flint is a seventh grade boy who can’t see, so some of his peers have chosen to call him Squint. I loved that he doesn’t let that get to him, instead he uses the name as a comic book character in the comic book he’s drawing. Obviously, things are hard at school for Flint, he can’t see and the kids aren’t the nicest to him. One day he meets McKell. That meeting changes things for both of them.

McKell hasn’t lived very long in the same town as Flint. She has some challenges that have been given to her to be kind to others and to put herself out there a little bit. She chooses to use Flint to do that. I loved the way she chose to include him in the things she was doing. But my favorite part was that when things got hard for McKell, Flint was able to be there to help her. These two supported each other as they went through hard things. Isn’t that a perfect lesson for kids dealing with life in Junior High? And ultimately for all of us.

I loved everything about this one and I can’t wait to share it with my Junior High daughter!