A Month of Mondays

Gr 5–8—Suze Tamaki is coasting lazily through seventh grade when her mother, Caroline, suddenly reappears after 10 years of abandonment and her English teacher tricks her into switching to Honors English and pairs her with her overachiever best friend. Suze hates being forced to live up to everyone's high expectations. She wants to get to know her mother, but her older sister, Tracie, gets angry at her if she even talks to Caroline. Suze feels caught in the middle of everything when all she wants to do is snuggle up in bed and read. Anthony explores the issues of absent parents, family dynamics, and second chances. Suze is biracial (she is Japanese-Anglo-Canadian), though her biracial identity is not the focus here. The novel moves a bit too slowly, with occasional emphasis on unnecessary details that drag the pacing to a crawl.