By Sharon M. Draper
Eleven-year-old Isabella lives one week at Mom's and one week at Dad's, and is blended in every direction, two homes, two soon-to-be stepfamilies, a Black father and a white mother, and no idea which half of herself she's allowed to be.
Isabella's life runs on a schedule taped to the fridge: one week at Mom's, one week at Dad's, and a suitcase that never fully unpacks. Her parents are divorced and can barely be in the same room, so she's the one carrying messages, forgetting her charger at the wrong house, and biting her tongue. Now both parents are getting serious with someone new, which means a soon-to-be stepmother and stepbrother on one side, a soon-to-be stepfather on the other, and Isabella wondering where she fits in any of it. She's biracial, too, with a white mom and a Black dad, so 'blended' isn't just her family, it's the question she carries about herself. Piano is the one place the two halves make sense, until a terrifying afternoon on the way to a recital forces her whole splintered family to show up in the same place at once.
For the older child on this shelf, Blended is the one that respects how complicated a divided, blending family actually feels. Isabella isn't a problem to be solved; she's a whole, funny, watchful narrator who loves both parents and is exhausted by both, who wants the new stepfamily to work and resents being asked to make room. Draper lets her be angry and loving at once. Layered on top is the harder, realer subject of being biracial and being seen a certain way by the world, which the book brings to a frightening head. It's the book that trusts a nearly-teen reader with the full weight of the thing.