Chris has a perfect summer planned, including a summer reading challenge & book club with her best friend, Vicky. Unfortunately, those plans are put on hold when Chris finds out that her mom needs surgery to help with a chronic pain condition. While Mom recovers, Chris and her little sister Becca will be staying with their grandparents, who live in a rural area of western Massachusetts. That means no book club, major limits on screen time, and, worst of all, Becca bothering Chris all summer long. Luckily, a new friend named Mia might be just what Chris needs to make it through the summer.

The character of Chris will resonate with many young bookworms and introverts who love to read and enjoy spending time by themselves. Readers with siblings will also relate to Chris & Becca's relationship. Chris is often frustrated with Becca, whose interests are drastically different (she loves all things soccer), and whose curiosity and energy Chris finds exhausting; Becca, on the other hand, likes and admires her older sister and only wants to connect and spend time with her. Chris and Becca's grandparents are loving and supportive and encourage both sisters to spend time outdoors, pursue their own interests, and also try and see one another's perspective. Overall, this is a quiet, introspective story that will appeal to readers who are drawn to books exploring family and friendship dynamics. Gino also includes Chris's summer reading log at the close of the book, which is a delightful addendum and wonderful resource for readers.

Take my review with a grain of salt, I am aware that as an adult I am not the target audience for this novel.

I really liked seeing the Chris and her sister become closer over the course of the novel, because at the beginning I was struggling a bit. At points in the novel her dislike for her sister seemed a bit harsh and over the top, so I was glad to see some sibling love at the end. The novel has great representation of chronic pain. Chris' mother has to have a complicated surgery, so Chris and her sister have to go stay with their grandparents for the summer while mom recovers. The novel is full of important conversations weaved throughout the narrative.

I read the arc just as my library was winding down the Summer Reading Program so I particularly enjoyed how much of a bookworm our main character was!

I love everything Alex Gino writes, and Chris Makes a Friend was a new twist on their previous work. Their gift for exploring identity exploration and development in young kids in a sympathetic and entirely intellectually respectful way is unmatched, and in this case I was here for Chris's first real experience of separation from her parents and home, and how she coped. It had a twist I didn't expect and really looked at the challenge of sibling relationships in early life, too. I had some issues with the grandparents who seemed a bit one-note, but I thought of them like the Charlie Brown adults -- annoying and incidental to the story. That helped. Support trans writers! They're doing the work to represent and need to be read far and wide.

I liked this one a lot. As progressive as Alex Gino writes, the scene with Mia seemed forced.

I really liked their story focused on friendship and family.

I enjoyed reading this book. You could feel Chris' frustrations and understandings with having to deal with her little sister and grandparents over the summer. The book has great representation of a disabled parent that is not dumbed down for middle grade. At one point Chris even worries that Frank, her mother's partner, might want to leave because Frank has to constantly take care of her mom and them. There is stress and anxieties that Chris deals with in this book that is very well written. I thought it was interesting that the friend Chris makes at her grandparent's was actually imaginary! It was not something I expected but it is something that older children do and I enjoyed her talking about it with her grandma and mom. I liked the brief talks about gender in the book. It was great for Chris to be like at first I thought I was this, but then I realized this, etc. It is brief but found that to be okay as it was not the main part of the book. I loved that the author included a list of all of the books that Chris read at the end! What a great resource for readers! Overall, I thought this was a good story and could sympathize with Chris even though I was the outgoing annoying younger sibling. I will be recommending this book to patrons.

Thank you to NetGalley for the E-ARC. I am looking forward to recommending this title for middle grade patrons in my library, and I love the inclusion of an inclusive book list for middle grade readers at the end of the book! If I were a beta reader or editor I might have suggested keeping the gender conversation(s) to be between Chris, her stepparent Frank, and her sister as a way to introduce new terms and concepts of gender for young readers. I also am not sure about the use of a "community only term" (butch) for this audience. But representation is important and young readers can only learn to understand the world if they are able to see it in their lives, in person, in print, or in media. I hope that most young people don't try quite so hard to exclude and show hate toward their siblings as Chris does, but many will relate to the struggle of being asked to tag along to events that they don't enjoy or being expected to entertain younger siblings when they are hoping for quiet. I loved that the creation of an imaginary friend, even in an older child, was not treated as a symptom of mental illness or neurodivergence, but simply as a creative way for a young person to deal with stress and lonliness. Excellent disability rep without sugar-coating chronic conditions and how they affect the whole family. 3.5 stars rounded up