The Trouble with Sunshine

In a heartfelt novel about adapting and overcoming personal challenges, Méndez (The Beautiful Game) spotlights the camaraderie to be found in difference and the joys one discovers while learning to fit in. Thirteen-year-old Dorani Gutierrez is multitalented: she’s smart, compassionate, revels in learning about her heritage, and always speaks her mind. Though her father, who is of Argentinian descent, is mostly absent, her Puerto Rican mother’s presence more than makes up for it—until her mother dies. Now Dori must leave Miami—as well as her best friend and her mother’s fiancé—to live on a ranch in Wyoming with her tía Ivette, her mother’s estranged sister. While moving from the city to the country is a shock, Dori throws herself into her new reality with gusto, even as she grapples with grief. With the help of Sunshine, a horse that Tía is rehabilitating following an automotive accident, Dori makes new friends and inspires good in everyone she meets. Sophisticated first-person narration is imbued with Dori’s infectious enthusiasm. Simply rendered conflict—both emotional and interpersonal—allows the novel to maintain an overwhelmingly jovial tone that celebrates all the things that make a family. Ages 9–12. Agent: Linda Camacho, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Mar.)