Sophie’s Squash Go to School by Pat Zietlow Miller
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
Genre: Childrens, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (41 pages)
Age Recommendation: 6+
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

This charming sequel to the beloved Sophie’s Squash is the perfect antidote to the back-to-school jitters. Sophie goes to school for the first time and has no interest in making friends that aren’t squash. Here’s a gently humorous read-aloud that proves that making friends, just like growing squash, takes time.

On Sophie’s first day of school, nobody appreciates her two best friends, Bonnie and Baxter, baby squash that she grew in her garden. Even worse, one classmate, Steven Green, won’t leave Sophie alone. He sits by her at circle time. He plays near her during recess. And he breathes on her while she paints. Steven just wants to be friends, but Sophie isn’t interested. Still, Sophie knows that her squash friends won’t last forever. Maybe it would be nice to have some human friends after all. . . .

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As much as I liked Sophie, I liked Steven even more. This wasn’t an easy thing for me to admit since I’ve been a huge fan of Sophie’s creativity and strong self esteem ever since I first started reading about her. Steven was such a friendly and helpful child that I couldn’t help but to hope his persistence would pay off. I wanted nothing more than for these two characters to realize they had a lot in common and to start playing together every day at recess.

There was so much kindness woven into this tale. Sophie was different from her classmates for reasons that were never really explained. I loved the fact that those reasons were left to the reader’s imagination and that so many of the people in this girl’s life were willing to keep trying to help her until they hopefully figured something that would make sense to her. Whether she was an unusually quirky kid or her behaviors could be explained by a specific diagnosis didn’t ultimately matter. She was surrounded by deeply kind people who genuinely wanted to see her succeed either way.

The character development couldn’t have been better. Not only did Sophie learn some important lessons about how to make friends when your first attempts don’t work at all, her classmates learned equally valuable lessons from their experiences with her as well. While I can’t go into much detail about those scenes without giving away spoilers, I adored the fact that the characters were all on equal footing. Everyone had something to learn from someone else whether they originally realized it or not.

This is the sequel to Sophie’s Squash, and this series should be read in chronological order.

Sophie’s Squash Go to School is the perfect story to read for anyone who has ever struggled to make friends or adjust to a new routine.