Review: When Friendship Followed Me Home
Ben Coffin was abandoned as a baby and bounced around the foster care system until he was finally adopted at the age of ten. He’s happy with his home life but keeps to himself otherwise, preferring books to other people. He discovers a dog in an alley and through the dog meets a sparkly young woman and he and Halley become fast friends.
Ben’s life begins to fall apart shortly after he meets Halley and she has serious struggles of her own. The pair decide to write a book together which draws them even closer and Ben learns about friendship and love.
When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin is a sad but sweet middle grade novel about friendship and family. It’s heartbreaking at times but ultimately uplifting. At times it was difficult to read about children facing such struggles because they felt so real. I’m sure there are many children who will be able to relate to Ben and Halley’s problems and draw comfort from them.
The audio version of When Friendship Followed Me Home is read by the author and I thought he did an okay job. He didn’t change his voice for dialogue so it was hard to distinguish who was talking at times. I still thought the story was terrific and would recommend it to middle grade students on up.
I will link this up to Booking Mama’s Saturday feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.
The story sounds good though a bit sad.
I’d probably want to read it in print. I need a narrator to distinguish between characters. Sounds good though.
This reminds me of Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers. I like the fact that it is geared to middle schoolers. I think this is a book that I might read.
I’ve never seen this book before. Sounds interesting,
I loved this one!
Sounds sad and good
Thanks for sharing some thoughts about this book.
I am not sure I would like the narration on this one. I like it when they change their voice so I can easily figure out who is talking.
I am always fascinated by the foster system. I’ve considered it for our family but I haven’t been able to convince Jason yet 🙂
Does sound like a very sweet story.
I can think of a few kids who might like this one. I’ll have to recommend it to them. The kids I know at school in the foster care system have some heartbreaking stories. Sadly, I’m sure this story wasn’t far from the truth for many of these kids.
I’m rarely tempted by middle grade, but this is the second middle grade book I’ve put on my wish list today!
OMG — it sounds so sad. I’m sure parts of it are uplifting though, and I do agree that kids will be able to relate to parts of the novel.
I haven’t heard of this one before. Sounds like a roller coaster.