By Leslie Connor
A big, gentle boy who can barely read or write keeps telling the plain truth about how his best friend died, but the adults around him assume he's hiding something.
Mason Buttle is the biggest boy in his grade. He sweats more than anyone, can barely read or write, and carries the loss of his best friend Benny like a hole in his chest. Benny died in the Buttle family's apple orchard more than a year ago, and a police lieutenant keeps coming back to Mason, certain he's holding something back. He isn't. Mason tells the truth every single time. Then he makes a new friend, tiny and fierce Calvin Chumsky, and the two of them dig a secret hideout to get away from the neighborhood boys who torment them. When Calvin disappears too, Mason has to find a way to make the grown-ups finally listen. The whole book is told in Mason's own plain, warm voice.
It works on two tracks at once. There's a real mystery — what actually happened to Benny — and there's the slower story of a boy the world writes off because he can't spell. Your child gets to be smarter than the adults in the book, who keep missing what's right in front of them, and that's deeply satisfying to read. Connor writes Mason's dyslexia from the inside, with real respect, so a child who struggles with reading may finally see themselves in the hero. And through all of it, Mason stays kind. The grief is heavy, but his warmth never leaves the page.