A Handful of Stars

A Handful of Stars

By Cynthia Lord

2 ratings 7 reviews 4 followers
Interest LevelReading LevelReading A-ZATOSWord Count
Grades 4 - 8Grade 5n/a4.432823
This powerful middle-grade novel from the Newbery Honor author of RULES explores a friendship between a small-town girl and the daughter of migrant workers.

When Lily's blind dog, Lucky, slips his collar and runs away across the wide-open blueberry barrens of eastern Maine, it's Salma Santiago who manages to catch him. Salma, the daughter of migrant workers, is in the small town with her family for the blueberry-picking season.

After their initial chance meeting, Salma and Lily bond over painting bee boxes for Lily's grandfather, and Salma's friendship transforms Lily's summer. But when Salma decides to run in the upcoming Blueberry Queen pageant, they'll have to face some tough truths about friendship and belonging. Should an outsider like Salma really participate in the pageant-and possibly win?

Set amongst the blueberry barrens and by the sea, this is a gorgeous new novel by Newbery Honor author Cynthia Lord that tackles themes of prejudice and friendship, loss and love.
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN-13: 9780545700283
ISBN-10: 0545700280
Published on 5/9/2017
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 192

Book Reviews (5)

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It was a good book and I liked how Salma was different and didn't care about what other people thought.

Lee Lee

good book!!!! love it

Its a wonderful story about pushing threw when times were hard and also about friendship.

Okay, okay.... let's begin, A Handful of Stars by Cynthia Lord was a book that I liked. This one makes you feel two emotions, happy and sad. I'll show you what I mean by using emojis. ( This contains spoilers) Lucky running away ( 😭) Meeting Salma (😀) Finding out that Salma is poor (😭) PorkPie (😀) Lucky being blind (😭) Entering Pageant (💄😀) Now, now, now... the negatives. Well, I really did not like the fact that Hannah always wins. And just because Salma was telling the truth she did not make it. I kind of felt a tad bit of racism from the judges of the pageant and the characters in general. But anyway, as I reviewer I stress a lot about the details, and I found that a little something was wrong with the concept. Other than that, I really loved this one. I recommend this, and three stars is nothing to sneeze about😀

I love your review!

@ajg14, Thank you so much😀

I love how u used the emojis😉😵😀😎

The main character is just like me she lives in Maine, picks blueberries,and has a blind dog