The two biggest issues that middle grade readers have to deal with are friends and personal identity. This book handled both of those brilliantly. Ren and Aiden are growing apart because Aiden is hanging out with physically more mature boys who are interested in sports; Ren likes comic books. Sutton is on the weird side, which makes Ren want to avoid her, but they have fun together, so he's confused. It's a little unusual for middle school boys to be friends with girls, and I thought that the evolution of the friendship was written very convincingly.

Ren wants to be an athlete like his father, and he does try, but it's just not who he is. He doesn't think about this a lot; he tries stuff, and it doesn't work. I liked that Sutton had an unusual interest, and also that her father's situation was managed in as positive a manner as it could be. Moving, deaths of grandparents, parents who are busy-- this had a lot of very important issues and was done in an upbeat way.

I wish that Ren had liked running! It's true, though-- it's not for every child, and bonus points for actually running before the season and seeing if it worked for him. Readers who enjoyed Kate Messner's The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z will find this to be a similar read. Roll will be a hit with readers who like realistic fiction with a little bit of humor like Greenwald's Charlie Joe Jackson series, Weeks' Regular Guy or Anderson's Ms. Bixby's Last Day and Posted.