The Many Mysteries of The Finkel Family

My favorite thing about books, and the reason I would plow through 10+ novels a week as a kid, is the way they let you experience something new and exciting without actually leaving your home. I would go on adventures, travel to Mars, and visit ancient civilizations, all without leaving my cozy bed. Sarah Kapit’s contemporary MG novel, The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, took this a step further. Forget going someplace new, I got a chance to inhabit the head of someone vastly different from myself and see what the world is like through their eyes.

In fact, the narrator of this neurodivergent tale of family secrets switched between two of the Finkel sisters, Caroline and Lara, both of whom are autistic. Lara, the older sibling, has overtones of a modern Harriet the Spy, as she brandishes her notebook of observations and attempts to become a detective. It is quickly apparent to readers that she is actually looking to find her place in a family undergoing several significant upheavals.

Caroline, on the other hand, is confused about her older sisters new independent streak, despite vying for some independence of her own at school. Although Caroline must use assistive technology to speak, she has convinced her new middle school to let her attend classes without a para and is determined to prove she can make friends on her own, without Lara’s or the school’s help.

Several members of the Finkel family are neurodivergent, including Dad whose ADHD impacts the sisters multiple times, and it is fascinating to see this through Caroline and Lara’s eyes. Their voices are unique, their perspectives fresh and gripping. They each make mistakes and seek to make reparations in their own unique fashion, based on their personalities and strengths. This allows the reader to appreciate their individuality as well as their bond as sisters.

Books can do so many things, but at their hearts, they usher the reader into the narrators particular universe. In this case, the adventure may not have taken me very far geographically, nor were the stakes the stuff of the apocalypse, yet I was taken out of my comfort zone, into someones else’s, and am grateful for the experience. Middle grade readers will find much to love in these pages.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the /u.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.