A review by private_reader
The Cul-De-Sac Kids by Alison Acheson

3.0

It might be kind of a cheat to call this book middle grade, because it’s really more akin to a very early chapter book. It’s very short (I read it in about 30 minutes) and peppered with black and white illustrations so it’s obviously aimed at a pretty young audience. The author Alison Acheson (who was my prof at UBC) autographed my copy to my daughter who is 8. She read it once and then picked it up and read it again that’s a good sign. There are a few things to recommend this book. One, it’s one of the few kids books I’ve read that deals with the introduction of the step-father into a family in positive way. Many books have well established stepfathers (both good and bad) but often when a new man is coming into a child’s life the story presents it as negative, at least from the child’s point of view. The kids in this story seem genuinely pretty happy with their new dad, so that was kind of nice. Oddly enough, because this is a book for very young readers, I kind of felt like the stepfather’s story was the most interesting. It’s almost like I could read a companion novel written from his point of view, as a childless man joining a family with two kids and being “schooled” by his new neighbors on how to be a good dad. What do you think Alison? I also thought the street hockey and the other outdoor activities that the kids get up to were really great. Overall, this is a quiet but thoughtful book for less sophisticated readers that I think would make great classroom material.