This is a short, but powerful elementary graphic book. Cathryn is a young girl who hates noise. On the first day of seventh grade, she meets fourth-grader Tyler on the bus. He is a very talkative young boy. He annoys her with all of his chatter and she yells at him. She feels bad for yelling at him and looks for him after school. You must read this book to see how kindness can make such a difference. ( )

Cute, but relatively pointless, and I have no idea why it matters that it's based on a true story. I guess the lesson here is to be nice to annoying kids because you never know if they are secretly grieving for their dead mother, but I felt unnecessarily emotionally manipulated. Edited to add -- Oh! It was a student project! It's a perfectly splendid student project. ( )

Cathryn is on edge for the first day of seventh grade, and the little fourth grader on the bus pestering her to borrow paper, pencils, scissors, and more pushes her to the breaking point. A very short story about anger, regret, and amends takes off in an unexpected direction. ( )

It's Cathryn's first day of seventh grade, but she's not feeling particularly enthusiastic since she doesn't have any friends. As she gets herself ready in the morning and boards the bus, she's irritated by how noisy the world around her is and takes comfort in blocking out all of the external sounds with her headphones. In the seat in front of her, a maddeningly talkative younger boy attempts to engage her in conversation, but then settles for borrowing some school supplies for a project.

My daughter selected this sweet and poignant title to fulfill a "read a book based on a true story" 6th grade summer reading bingo square. It was so tiny (just 26 pages) that I decided to read it as well before returning it to the library. ( )

Seventh-grader Cathryn just wants to be left alone on the school bus, but fourth-grader Tyler keeps interrupting her quiet time with his enthusiasm.

The description of this book made it seem like it would be a story about a child dealing with a sensory processing disorder; it's really not. Cathryn might or might not have some things she's dealing with (for instance, the implication that she always wears the same shirt hints at something larger), but this story is too slight to really investigate anything fully.

While the beginning of a friendship between Cathryn and Tyler is sweet, there is really nothing of substance here. The author would have been better off waiting until there were several small vignettes to stitch together so that the reader wouldn't be done with the book almost as soon as they started.

The illustrations are fine but nothing worth writing home about. ( )