Kid's Review: Ways to Make Sunshine

About the Book and Author

This positive story is suitable for readers aged 8-11 years. It is illustrated throughout by Mechal Roe and published by Bloomsbury.

Packed with humour and heart alongside meaningful and thoughtful moments, Ryan Hart is the central character who makes sunshine out of setbacks. She is a girl who everyone will want to be best friends with.

Ryan and her family live in Portland, Oregon, and her dad lost his job a while ago. He finally got a new one, but it pays less, and he’ll have to work nights. And so they’re selling the second car and moving to an (old) new house….

The Harts are an everyfamily with siblings who bicker, parents who don’t always get it right, but a family that loves. A family working hard to make it in tough economic times, a family with traditions and culture, a family that tries new things. This is about an black family growing up in middle class America.

Renée Watson is the Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award-winning author of the novels Piecing Me Together, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, co-written with Ilyasah Shabazz, and two picture books: Harlem’s Little Blackbird and A Place Where Hurricanes Happen. Renée is the founder of I, Too Arts Collective, a non-profit committed to nurturing underrepresented voices in the creative arts. She lives in New York City. Please visit the author’s website to find out more.

Book Review

I really enjoyed reading this book because it made me feel happy. It was a good book and I didn’t want to put it down

Even though it included some American language it was still an excellent book and the American writing just made it more special for me because it was a bit different.

The main character is a girl called Ryan who is funny and tries to make some unusual things at home. Like me, she does a lot of baking. Ray is her annoying elder brother, he likes to hang out with his friends and samples his sister’s baking experiments. Kiki and Amanda are Ryan’s best friends who always make her feel better.

Ryan has to move house and is annoyed at first, but she soon discovers that it is not so bad. In the story Ryan experiences lots of hard times and not everything goes to plan, but the story shows how everything will turn out well eventually.

I would definitely recommend this to my friends and anybody who keeps a diary. I give it a FIVE STAR rating.

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