Kirkus Reviews

Debut author Herrera deftly combines family drama with a school and friendship story. Ten-year-old Star Mackie lives with her older sister and their mother in a trailer park in Northern California. Her first-person narrative takes place during the fall of her fifth-grade year. New to the area, Star struggles to make friends at school, worries about her increasingly moody sister and wonders about the father she's never known. The author handles the Mackie family's financial and domestic situation with delicacy and respect, allowing readers to gradually get to know the difficulties her characters face. At home and at school, there's plenty packed into a few short weeks, from a trip to ferret out family secrets to repeated detentions and a food fight. Some readers may find the overall story arc predictable, and unfortunately, charismatic secondary characters occasionally outshine Star. Homework assignments inserted throughout provide additional background information and some mild humor, though Star's observations can seem naïve. By contrast, the poems and ideas shared by Star and the members of her Emily Dickinson Club are intriguing and inspiring if not especially childlike in tone. Well-constructed, thought-provoking and appealing, this first effort bodes well for the author's future despite some minor missteps. (Fiction. 9-12)

ALA Booklist (Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2014)

Star Mackie is a fifth-grader overflowing with hope pecially for friends. But that seems impossible at her new school since she is teased for living in a pink trailer and having strangely layered blue hair. Her goth sister, Winter r closest ally els Star's hope of one day connecting with the father she has yet to meet. Taking a clue from Winter, Star starts a school club in order to make friends, and along the way she develops a fascination with Emily Dickinson's poetry and declares that to be the club's focus. Star does everything she can to make the club work, and, little by little, a small misfit group of students become regulars. When Star learns the shocking truth about her own family, Dickinson's poetry helps her understand her crazy world and accept who she is. In her debut, Herrera has created a delightful narrator with a memorable voice and surrounded her with a unique supporting cast. Got fans of Joan Bauer in your neck of the woods? Send them this way.

Horn Book

Ten-year-old Star Mackie enthusiastically founds the Trailer Park Club and even gets a person or two to join. When it fails, she starts a poetry club and discovers Emily Dickinson, whom she decides is like her big sister, who's attending "delinquent school." Herrera gives readers a front-row seat to all the embarrassment and angst of Star's jumbled life--and all of the triumphs

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Herrera's vivid debut introduces a contemplative girl who finds an unlikely community at her new school. Ostracized for living in a trailer park (and, according to her classmates, having a mullet), Star decides to launch a school club, hoping to make friends. Her second attempt-a club about Emily Dickinson-actually attracts a handful of members, including an offbeat girl and two boys who are always in detention. As Star faces painful realities about her own family and continued prejudice at school, even from her teacher, her fellow club members come to her rescue in surprising and frequently heartening ways. Star's motivations for reaching out to her classmates are pure and affecting (she initially forms a trailer park club to "teach our members all the good things in trailer parks so that they'd stop thinking trailer parks were full of trash"). Despite Star's demoralizing circumstances, she maintains optimism, exploring her emotions through confessional vocabulary-word sentences, and without resorting to empty affirmations. A tender and truthful novel that addresses stereotypes without promising easy answers or cookie-cutter closure. Ages 8-12. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger. (Mar.)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 4-6 Quirky Star Mackie, who lives in a trailer park and has blue hair, desperately wants to make some friends in her new town. She decides that starting a poetry club is the perfect vehicle. Unfortunately, there aren't many other 10-year-olds as enamored with Emily Dickinson as she is. The only other kids who will join her club are a couple of boys in detention and a brother/sister team. Star has many dreams—she longs to meet her father, hopes her beloved big sister, who is coping with an unexpected pregnancy, will be happy again, and wishes most of all for a true friend. Herrera's first novel is quite accomplished, with plenty of heart and humor, especially apparent in the spelling assignments Star has to complete but refuses to turn in, as she uses them as a sort of journal. Star is a unique, determined, and loving child making the best of a bad situation; readers cannot help but root for her.— B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA