A review by ajsterkel
Flying Lessons & Other Stories by Ellen Oh

4.0

I liked this book a lot! If you’re searching for a good middlegrade short story anthology, I highly recommend this one. There are a few “meh” stories, and a few stories that try too hard to be profound, but there are none I disliked. A few of them made me smile, especially “Flying Lessons” by Soman Chainani and “Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents” by Kwame Alexander. “Flying Lessons” is about a kid and his rich, eccentric granny who are trying to make friends on a beach in Spain. “Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents” is about a kid who’s writing a memoir for English class, but he gives himself psychic mind-reading powers in his memoir. The best story in the anthology is “Secret Samantha” by Tim Federle. It’s about kids doing a Secret Santa gift exchange. The author perfectly captures that awkward preteen age where you feel confused and misunderstood all the time. This is an excellent book. Please read it!



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