When Friendship Followed Me Home

From School Library Journal Gr 5–8—Twelve-year-old Ben, a science fiction fan with low self-esteem after years of foster care, meets a stray dog outside the Coney Island Public Library. Flip, with his big eyes and propensity to lick everyone's mouth, in turn helps Ben get to know a girl who is fighting cancer, and her family. When Ben's life gets turned upside down again, Flip remains. This is a "kitchen sink" book; it has bullying, adoption, homelessness, death, abuse, and cancer. However, the optimism of the protagonist combined with the positivity lent by the presence of this loving canine makes this book somehow less hard-hitting than the author's usual YA dramas. Griffin never throws too much at readers at once, taking his protagonist through each successive challenge, and the dialogue remains consistently light and free of overt emotion. References to science fiction and middle grade literature abound, and there's some serious admiration for dogs, librarians, and Jacqueline Woodson's Feathers. The weakest part of this novel is the convoluted science fiction story Ben and the aforementioned girl unspool throughout. The plot-within-a-plot is written by these two imaginative kids with unfettered fancy, with the same quality of a child's writing. If readers can get past those sections, however, the relentless pull of Ben's slow character growth through his drama and the big loving doggy presence will pull misty-eyed readers to the very end. VERDICT If you have middle schoolers who are too young to fully grasp John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and love dogs, give them this sweet tearjerker.—Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC A New York Times Book Review Editor’s ChoiceA People magazine Popular PickA Summer 2016 Kids’ Indie Next Pick A Publishers Weekly Best of Summer Pick Working Mother magazine's #1 Best Book of the Year So FarA 2016 Nerdy Book Club Award winner "[T]his bittersweet, well-paced book…left me with faith that people can feel discarded, as though everything they love will be taken from them, and still end up whole, if they are touched by love of friendship."xa0— The New York Times Book Reviewxa0* "Entrancing, magical, tragic, and uplifting."xa0— Kirkus Reviews , starred review * "As in his young adult books, Griffin ( Adrift ) handles hard topics with penetrating insight and honesty, while balancing painful moments (and there are many) with levity."xa0— Publishers Weekly , starred review*xa0"As funny and heartwarming as it is gut-punching...thoroughly engaging." xa0— Shelf Awareness, starred review* "Although this middle grade book covers some tough topics...it never loses hope."xa0— School Library Connection, starred review"If you have middle schoolers who are too young to fully grasp John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and love dogs, give them this sweet tearjerker."xa0— School Library Journal "This is a multi-tissue read...Griffin’s characters are unique and charmingly multidimensional. Readerslooking for a deep read will take to this story as quickly as Flip takes to Ben."xa0— Booklist " When Friendship Followed Me Home was written for middle-grade readers, yet it will find readership among all ages."xa0— VOYA "Axa0new classic of young people’s literature.”xa0—workingmother.com"The story is gripping, the ending bittersweet, and the writing amazing.”xa0—Imagination Soup"At its core, this book posits a refreshing, if not new, definition of familly....xa0WHEN FRIENDSHIP FOLLOWED ME HOME is terse and gripping, sad and hilarious, emotional and very, very real.”xa0— Joel Shoemaker, The News-Gazette "Full of pace and laughter, bruises and heart . Paul Griffin is the sort of writer you're torn between telling the whole world about and keeping all to yourself."— Markus Zusak , author of Printz Honor Winner The Book Thief “‘Friendship’ is an absolutely beautiful, heart-expanding book .xa0 I cried, but more than that I felt this giant balloon of love for everyone.xa0 This story convinced me all over again that love and imagination are life’s biggest magic. It’ll make you want to grab hold of everyone important to you and lick them on the nose.”xa0xa0xa0— Rebecca Stead , author of Newbery Award winner When You Reach Me "Some books change the way you see the world. Some change the way you breathe. This book will leave you breathless. This is Paul Griffin's best book yet— and that's really saying something." — Patricia McCormick , author of National Book Award Finalist Sold " When Friendship Followed Me Home is both a beautiful book, and an honest book ; it is, in fact, beautiful because it is honest. We see the pain of loss, and the glory of community. We see love in its many forms, and we witness the truth that love goes on despite all barriers. Cheer for Ben and Halley: it is kids like these who are our hope.”xa0 — Gary D. Schmidt , author of Okay for Now Paul Griffin is the award-winning author of Ten Mile River , The Orange Houses , and Burning Blue . He lives, trains dogs, and writes in New York City. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 CHUNKY MOLDYou’d have to be nuts to trust a magician. I learned that lesson the hard way. And then, if you can believe it, I actually became a magician’s assistant. That part was the Rainbow Girl’s fault, but the rest of it I blame on a little dog named Flip.The trouble started the second Friday of seventh grade. Damon Rayburn shoved me out of the lunch line. “Thanks, Coffin,” he said.“For what?” I said.“Offering to buy me a slice.”If you think a little threat like that could get me to surrender my pizza money to an idiot like Damon Rayburn, you know me pretty well. He slapped the back of my head and cut to the front of the line.“You’re half a foot taller than him, Coffin,” this kid half a foot shorter than Rayburn said. His name was Chucky Mull, but everybody called him Chunky Mold. “You should have belted him. Now he knows he can push you around.”“Allow me to quote Yoda, from The Empire Strikes Back,” I said. “‘A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.’”“You were being called upon to defend your inalienable right to eat meatball pizza,” Mold said. “Yoda also says don’t be a wimp.”“Yoda never uses the word wimp.”“He says, ‘Fear is the path to the dark side.’ Dude, hello, The Phantom Menace?”There was no debating Mold on this stuff. He had the T-shirts—the sheets too. I shoved him toward our spot far, far away in the dark corner where they kept the garbage dumpster nobody ever dumped. Mold’s mom had stuck a note on the waxed paper that barely covered his foot-long hero. It said, LOVE YOU. / He tossed the note and crammed a hunk of sandwich into his mouth. “Any chance you would consider splitting that with me?” I said. “Come on, Mold, you’ll never be able to finish the whole thing.”“Watch me,” Chucky said. “Holy crud, here she comes.”Mrs. Pinto worked her way toward us. She was really pretty for a principal or even a normal human being. “Hi guys,” she said.“Good, how are you?” Mold said.“If you ever need anything, stop by my office, okay?”“You too,” Mold said.Mrs. Pinto patted my shoulder as she left.“She totally just touched you,” Chucky said. “You, a loser, caressed on your loser shoulder by Mrs. P. I sent her the wink almost like four hours ago now. Nothing. Why are you staring at me like that? Dude, the emoticon? Are you visiting from The Stone Age?”“I know what the wink is. I just can’t believe you sent her one.”“So?”“She’s old. Mold, she’s like thirty.”xa0“It’s not what you think. On Facebook the wink is a sign of supreme respect. It’s like when somebody inspires you, you wink at them. It’s true. It’s an ancient custom that goes all the way back to classical times, the Greeks and Romanians. It’s like you’re bowing to her to acknowledge her awesomeness.”“Then why not just send her a bow?”“Because there’s no emoticon for that, you moron. Just because she has a totally amazing butt doesn’t mean she can’t be my hero too, for her, you know, incredible wisdom and everything.”“That’s why you winked at her—her wisdom.”xa0“What do you know anyway? You’re not even on Facebook. It’s a real thing, I swear. In many cultures it’s considered rude not to send the wink.” He batted away a fly from where the peanut butter slimed his lip like a gluey booger.I had to believe him, firstly because you can tell when somebody’s lying, and he truly didn’t think he was, and most of all because he was right about me not being on Facebook. The whole friends thing: It wasn’t really happening. Even Mold was more aggravation than ally. I moved to the neighborhood less than two years before. In a year me and my mom were heading to Florida, right after she retired. We could live great down there for cheap, she said. I figured why bother making friends when I was out of here pretty soon?“Chucky, not even a bite? Really?” I said.“Dream on,” he said, or something like that. I couldn’t tell with the sandwich all gunked up in his braces. Read more