ALA Booklist (Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2001)

Amir is terrified of his good fortune. He has finally found his little brother, Ronald, whose loving foster parents even seem to want to include Amir as well. But, as he tells his friend, Doris, in a series of letters, Amir's mother gave strict death-bed instructions to keep the family together, and he still hasn't located his other brothers and sisters. Hansen has written a touching story of a young boy's struggle with a painful past and a scary future. His letters to and from his friend express the many sides of Amir's conflict. Doris helps him understand his foster parents, his choices, and the truth that someone is going to end up unhappy, even as she gives him advice that he ultimately rejects. And Amir dispenses his own advice as well, as he gradually reveals his family history. Both sad and hopeful, this story dramatizes the struggle for survival, the primal pull of family, and the gift of one true friend.

Horn Book

Separated from his siblings after his parents' deaths, fourteen-year-old Amir yearns to reunite his family. Letters between Amir and his friend Doris show Amir's gradual acceptance of his foster family. In this sequel to The Gift-Giver and Yellow Bird and Me, Hansen presents a touching portrait of a boy struggling to figure out what he wants and what is right, and a friendship that gives him the strength to do so.

Kirkus Reviews

A semi-epistolary novel in which two friends help each other through hard times with a long-distance correspondence. Hansen brings back characters introduced in The Gift-Giver (1980) and Yellow Bird and Me (1986) to continue their stories. Amir, 14, an orphan whose family has been broken up, is adjusting to life in Syracuse with new foster parents, the Smiths, who have raised his little brother from the age of two. Meanwhile, Doris, 12, sends him news of his old Bronx neighborhood and writes of her friendship with a girl who she learns has a marijuana habit. The letters back and forth between the two children are buttressed by a more traditional third-person narrative of Amir's activities in Syracuse, for the story is primarily his. It's his quest to find his aunt and his other brothers and sisters to reunite his family, and his struggle to overcome the shame that clouds his memory of his parents' last days. He is a genuinely sympathetic character, his loneliness and reluctance to trust this new set of foster parents being compounded by his little brother's total attachment to the Smiths and his heartbreaking lack of memory of his birth family. In their correspondence, however, the kids come across as almost impossibly sweet; their letters have a few token grammatical errors but otherwise Amir and Doris express themselves with astonishing fluency and with a sort of forced naivete that frequently falls flat. Nonetheless, it's a good-hearted and honest treatment of kids' feelings as they cope with their own separate challenges. The story can stand on its own; newcomers to the series, though, may want to go back to the earlier books to see how Amir and Doris's friendship started. (Fiction. 8-12)

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

Best buddies Doris and Amir return in Joyce Hansen's One True Friend. In this follow-up to The Gift-Giver and Yellow Bird and Me, much of the novel unwinds through letters revealing the solid connection between the two lonely friends now living in different cities that are worlds apart. ( Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8-This novel about a boy recently placed in foster care has much to recommend it, though Hansen crowds a plethora of subjects into 154 pages and portions of the writing are unnaturally stiff. Amir and his siblings were separated after their parents died of AIDS. He has bounced around New York City from relatives to friends to a group home, but when the book opens he has joined his youngest brother in a foster home in Syracuse. Feeling isolated and confused, the 14-year-old initiates a correspondence with Doris, a friend from the Bronx. She offers advice and shares some of her own anxieties. As the oldest child, Amir feels compelled to search for and reunite his family. Once they are found, he must decide whether little Ronald will be better off with the foster parents who want to adopt him or with his brothers, sisters, and aunt and uncle. Amir and Doris explore the ties that bind families, the commitment that may take precedence over blood bonds, when promises to friends or relatives need to be broken, and a host of other topics. Amir comes across as a likable kid, but the burden of so many issues often overwhelms the plot as much as it weighs on the hero.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.