Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen

September 15, 2021
Eleven-year-old Maple Mehta-Cohen loves words. She loves hearing her father read books aloud to her before bedtime, and she loves dictating her own stories into the digital voice recorder that she keeps in her pocket at all times--she dreams up mysteries about a sleuth called Mira Epstein-Patel. Maybe that's why it took until fifth grade for a teacher to finally notice that Maple has serious struggles with reading. After screening tests reveal that she exhibits characteristics of dyslexia, Maple learns that, unlike her best friends, she is going to have to repeat the fifth grade. Although her friends assure her that nothing has to change between them, on the first day of school, they ignore her. In her new fifth grade classroom, Maple tries to connect with people, but her attempts are tripped up by her embarrassment, and she lies about why she's been held back. Struggling with her friendships and her self-esteem, Maple wonders who she's become--and how she can get back to being her old self, a person that she once truly loved. Maple's narratorial voice is frank and quirky, and her journey with coming to terms with her learning disability is layered, believable, and well researched. Maple has a White Jewish mother and an Indian father who coined the term Hin-Jew to describe her. The book repeatedly references her Indian identity, but her Jewish side is less developed. A layered, utterly readable novel about a biracial protagonist grappling with dyslexia. (Fiction. 8-12)

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October 1, 2021

Gr 4-7-Maple Mehta-Cohen has a secret, and she has worked hard to make sure no one finds out. Maple loves to tell, and spends much of her time dictating, her stories about her half-Indian, half-Jewish sleuth into her recorder. But despite her storytelling ability and expansive vocabulary, Maple doesn't know how to read. Her teacher thought it best for Maple to repeat fifth grade so that she can get help with reading. But Maple is not sure about this plan. It means leaving her two best friends, Aislinn and Marigold, and having everyone wonder why she is still in fifth grade. When the school year starts, things aren't better. Maple's teacher asks her to help new kid Jack learn his way around the school, plus she must go to Ms. Fine's group-the one that is for students who can't read. When Jack asks why Maple is still in fifth grade, the lies start, and Maple isn't sure she can stop. She is caught telling stories to her new friends in her reading group, trying to keep her old friends who don't seem to want to spend time with a fifth-grader, and staying true to herself. Though poignant, with so many different things happening, the novel doesn't really get to the depth of Maple's reading struggles, or her issues with friends, leaving the ending feeling unresolved. VERDICT For young people who struggle with reading or feeling different because of other academic issues, Maple is a welcome protagonist.-Rebekah Buchanan, Western Illinois Univ., Macomb

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