Meet Me Halfway

Half sisters concoct a Parent Trap–tinged plan in this heartwarming novel from Fajardo (What If a Fish). When seventh grader Matilde “Mattie” Gomez is uprooted from Minnesota to live with her new stepfamily in California, she doesn’t expect to meet her doppelgänger on the first day of class. Mercedes Miller is one of the school’s most popular girls, and she knows more than she’s telling about why she and Mattie are nearly identical: they’re half sisters. Despite sharing a father—and a face—they couldn’t be more socially different: anxious Mattie disappears into the background both at school and in her bustling new family; prickly Mercedes, meanwhile, thrives in the spotlight, each night returning to an empty house populated only by a nanny and younger half brother. Neither has met their Colombian father, an anthropologist, and when they learn he’s a visiting professor at a nearby college, they collaborate in order to meet him, sneaking out of a school field trip, dodging security guards, and getting caught in a student protest. Mattie’s and Mercedes’s alternating narration follows their individual internality, skillfully exploring variations on family complexity to culminate in a satisfying novel of sisterhood. Ages 8–12. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Sept.)