Calvin and the Sugar Apples

A relatable early reader that taps into important life lessons about friendship, grief, and talking through feelings.

Eleven-year-old Amelia has always had Calvin to talk to, but Amelia has no idea where he is. Calvin is a twenty-one-year-old chinchilla and has always been there for Amelia whenever she needed to talk about her problems-but he is no longer in his cage, and her parents just say he's in a "better place." Everything seems to go wrong now that she and her best friend Camilla have had an argument, and Amelia has missed the school talent show. Without Calvin, who does she talk to about her disappointments at school? Without Calvin, who does Amelia talk to about missing Calvin? She vows to become like the sugar apples in her backyard, rich on the inside and always hard to find.

And just when Amelia thinks there's nobody she can talk to, a new student, Iris, arrives. Amelia learns that it's always possible to meet new friends that can teach you that expressing oneself can happen in different ways, but it always starts with talking it out.