Lilac and the Switchback
by Cordelia Jensen
Middle School    Holiday    304 pp.
8/25    9780823458325    $17.99

Lilac is heading into seventh grade, and things are changing. She has lived with an aunt, uncle, and cousin since her mother’s death but questions her place in that family. Meanwhile, she tries reconnecting with her absent father and finds shifting friendships challenging to navigate. But a new interest in reclaiming an abandoned hiking trail with her school trailblazing “tramily” (“trail family”) provides a therapeutic outlet and a place for connection. In this well-paced novel in verse, Jensen creates a sympathetically flawed and vulnerable protagonist. Choices regarding white space, text placement, italics, indenting, and font make transitions and interactions easily distinguishable and heighten the emotional impact. Throughout, Jensen parallels Lilac’s search for her place in the family, among her peers, and in the world with reflections on hiking and nature: “the safest way up / a steep mountain / is often by switchback, / a path with alternate / ascents and descents.” Acceptance gradually comes as Lilac learns that other families “are complicated, / even they / have missing people, / people who matter / but aren’t there, / people who live somewhere / underneath the surface / of their everyday lives.” An epilogue brings the school year to an end as everyone gathers for the opening day of the trail the students have cleared, a symbolic and rewarding conclusion.

From the November/December 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.