Max and Ella, Stuck Together

Max is trying to work out who he is. He has two mums, a tough time at school and a growing anxiety about the donor dad he has never met. What he wants more than anything is to play drums in the school band, but a bully’s unkind words knocked his confidence flat the last time he tried. His mums hope that meeting his donor parent might help him find his feet again.

Ella, meanwhile, really does not want to share her dad Hari, who was a donor parent before she was born. She is already navigating quite enough: a mum who works abroad, the leap to secondary school and the loss of her best primary school friend along the way. A half-sibling was not on her list.

Kristina Rahim is clearly committed to portraying families made up in different ways, and that commitment shows. The family dynamics here are drawn with care and sympathy, and it is genuinely pleasing to see these kinds of households represented in middle grade fiction without fuss or fanfare. The novel flips between Max and Ella’s perspectives as the two children and their families get to know one another, and there is much here that young readers will recognise and respond to.

The book does take a little while to find its pace. The early sections, in which backstory and character are carefully laid out, can feel somewhat earnest, and the shifting viewpoints occasionally slow things down. But when Max and Ella literally climb a mountain together and a series of circumstances turns their walk into a genuinely exciting adventure, the novel shifts gear entirely. Suddenly there is urgency, humour and jeopardy, and the race to get Max on stage in time gives the story a propulsive, satisfying momentum.

The ending is warm and reassuring without being saccharine: both children arrive at a clearer sense of who they are and find security in the love of the families that surround them. A feel-good read for anyone navigating change, difference or the occasionally bewildering business of growing up.