This story was well-told and engaging throughout. I think it will definitely find its right audience and continue to inspire.

This is one of my favorite middle grade novels in verse I’ve read. I adore queer girl middle grade and I found the burgeoning romance between the two main girls to be tender, sweet and powerful. I loved the way that the verse split between the two girls as well as the chorus. Overall a beautiful read.

Oh, I absolutely fell in love with these two girls!! I cannot wait to share it with students! (5th-8th is a perfect spot!)

Such an emotional book. The way it is written is such a different way to read for me but it is also perfect with the story that it tells. The book is about two 12-year-old girls who really like one another and then work their way through all of the emotions- the ups and downs- that come with that. A very cute read.

This is the first queer middle grade book I've read, and wow was it sweet! It brought me right back to those days of first crushes and awkward moments. I am so glad I got to read it, and I look forward to gifting it to the youngsters in my life.

5 Stars ( I received an e-arc from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review)

This is proof that middle grade isn’t just cute, soft and fun, especially when the novel is written in verse. Kate (Ponytail) and Tam (Redwood) meet on the first day of school randomly and follows their friendship journey, along with the separate issues they have in their personal lives. Kate trying to figure out who she wants to be and struggling to be the perfect Kate or the real Kate. Tam struggling with her new feelings and drifting away from her friend Levi. Cheerleading, turtles, a friendship bracelet and school drama. One aspect I loved was when Kate and Tam’s text were on the page side by side almost saying the same thing. Each part had some intro that almost reminded me of the three witches of Macbeth with each voice having them same name but each has a different spelling of their name. The last 20% of the book is so emotional and had so many raw feelings, which had me in tears for a lot of that time. An amazing LGBT middle grade novel with a lot of creativity put into it.

Told in verse this is a story of two girls one who is Kate a popular Cheerleader and Tam a tall jock who plays volleyball. This deals with a lot of issues such as friendships, family, mothers and sexuality issues. K. A. Holt does a wonderful job of bringing out the voices of these two girls and what they have to deal with as they start to learn more about themselves and what they want out of life.

A sweet LGBTQ love story. I have put this book in the hands of several of my middle school students. A book written in verse is always an easy sell.

I did not finish this it just was not my cup of tea, it has nothing to do with the story line but has to do with the fact that i just couldn’t get into it.

Written in verse, this is a wonderful story of an unexpected friendship that morphs into more for two seventh grade girls as they navigate school, families, and friendship. Definitely a must-read!

What an incredibly sweet book. I never know with a book written in verse if I’m going to hate it, or love it. Once I figured out how to read this one though, I really liked it. Kate is such a sweet main character. She falls for a girl at the beginning of seventh grade, and really doesn’t know how to deal with it. She takes a journey through the school year to find herself, and it’s really very touching. Definitely a perfect middle grade read.

Anything I write here wouldn’t be enough to reflect the beauty and importance of this book. K.A. Holt has outdone herself....and I adored her other books...but this one is sheer perfection.

I absolutely love KA Holt's books. She shows that representation matters! In this story, two girls, nicknamed Redwood and Ponytail find that they are "in like" and their journey to come to an understanding of feelings is appropriate for middle grade readers!

Redwood (Tam) is a star volleyball player. Ponytail (Kate) is on course to become the captain of the cheerleaders. They notice each other and things spark. Things change. The course of their lives shifts as they work through their feelings for each other. Tam is all in. She has grand-neighbors who are lesbians and is much more comfortable with her feelings. Kate is a little more reluctant. Her mom is a bit homophobic and has already driven her older sister away. Kate discovers she might want to be more than a cheerleader. Their love story may not be epic but it is true and real. It is told in verse with a chorus interjected throughout the stories to add a bit of perspective from the students around them. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and would definitely recommend it. Tam and Kate are experiencing first love and peer pressure and parental pressure to conform. They are learning who they are and starting on their life's journey. It is a fantastic story and highly relateable.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

This book is geared towards middle school age. It’s written in verse, and easy to follow. There was room for more development in the characters for sure. But overall a great queer book.

This is one of the sweetest middle grade romance books I have ever read. I loved the character development through this book and the poetry style was stunning and intriguing. This book must be read.

I'm all for queer books, and this seemed like the perfect book for a younger audience. I wanted to read it so I would know if I could recommend it to people.

Though the story was good, I felt like the characters were definitely not as fleshed out as they could be. One of the MC was developed more than the other and it caused the story to be a bit skewed.

If you are looking for a novel in verse to give to middle schoolers, Redwood and Ponytail would be a pretty good choice. Readers will enjoy this especially if they read House Arrest and Knock Out. Mainly covering friendship and questioning relationships, I believe many upper middle grade students will enjoy this book.

This was a middle book told through verse about two girls who couldn't be more different but somehow find common ground and fall in love.

It was very cute and very well done and such a fast read. It took me only a couple hours to read this entire story and maybe it could have been a bit longer? i probably would have been more attached to the characters had it been... Still a very cute and very necessary read for all the queer kids out there.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Netgalley and Chronicle Books.

Queer girls are really (finally!) having a moment in middle grade literature, so naturally I was looking forward to K.A. Holt’s new middle grade book, and I devoured it in just a couple of days before its release. I haven’t read any of Holt’s books before, but I’d heard they were popular with upper elementary and middle schoolers, and I really appreciated her op-ed about how schools tried to censor her sexuality during her visits.

Redwood and Ponytail, like the rest of Holt’s books I believe, is a novel-in-verse. This one is told in alternating perspectives of Kate and Tam, the real names of the titular characters (Kate has a perfect cheerleader ponytail; Tam is tall like a redwood), and sometimes their poems are side-by-side when they’re individually having a similar crisis. It’s an intensely personal style that still manages to flesh out the characters and the world around them. One way this is done is by a Greek chorus-style group of kids named different spellings of “Alex” that really emphasizes middle school politics and the sense of social anxiety both Kate and Tam have about how they’re perceived.

I loved the relationships Kate and Tam have with adults in their life. Adults are such a big part of adolescence and yet they can often be underwritten in books, but that isn’t the case here. Tam’s mom is goofy but loving, and she also has great models in her old lesbian neighbors (and their pets), but Kate’s got other challenges and lacks these models. Her mom has the perfect plan for Kate to be cheerleading captain, even though she starts to really enjoy being the mascot. Kate also has an adult sister who doesn’t have a great relationship with their mother, only heightening the mother’s expectations of Kate. But the sister, Jill, actually turns out to be another adult figure for Kate to confide in. And ultimately, importantly, there is no tragedy.

I really appreciate that both Kate and Tam get to make mistakes and be unlikable sometimes. They’re kids going through a lot–of course they will! And that just added to the depth and humanity of these characters, as well as suspense. Before everything can work out, they have to confront their own internal issues first. It’s an emotional roller coaster that’s steeped in honesty, not manipulation or plot twists.

I look forward to recommending this book to others and getting this and some of Holt’s other books for my future students if I teach middle school!