In Your Shoes by Donna Gephart
Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers on October 30th 2018
ISBN: 1524713732
Pages: 336
Goodreads

This is a sweet story about friendship for readers in grades 5-8.  Miles loves his family’s bowling alley business and it is the one place that his chronic anxious thoughts can be stilled.  Amy, who wears a wedge in one shoe,  has recently moved into her Uncle’s funeral home business.  Since her father is off training to understand the business, she is left alone to ponder her grief of her mother’s death to cancer in her story writing.  When a flying bowling shoe accidently brings Miles and Amy together, their own points of view are expanded in the areas of friendship, self –discovery and acceptance.  Gephart captures the natural ways of dialog between friends and sets up realistic family dynamics.  The one drawback is the insertion of an unnamed narrator who processes ideas about friendship a few times throughout the book.  It is presented in italics and seems unnecessary to the story.

Reviewed by Sheila Dube, Springvale Public Library