No Matter the Distance

No Matter the Distance by Cindy Baldwin left me with such a mix of emotions! I almost didn’t finish the book because the middle was a little draggy. But verse tends to keep me reading, and the burgeoning relationship between a girl and a dolphin was promising, so I persevered … and I really liked how the book turned out.

Penny has cystic fibrosis, which forces her to lead a life that is far from normal. Hospital visits and medication are not unusual, and what’s irritating is how many people tell her that she’s lucky.
She’s lucky to have got so far.
She’s lucky not to have it worse.
But Penny doesn’t feel lucky. Not when she’s the only almost-twelve-year-old in her school sitting in hospital instead of school.

The weaving together of storylines makes No Matter the Distance an interesting read. One storyline traces Penny’s attempt to write a poem about what she knows about herself for the poetry slam in school. Another explores her emotions as her best friend Cricket gets set to move away in six weeks. And finally, a third story line reveals the special bond growing between Penny and a dolphin in a nearby creek.

While I felt that the story could have been a good hundred pages shorter, there was much that I enjoyed about it. Penny’s relationship with both her sister Liana and her best friend Cricket is absolutely lovely. Her bond with the dolphin Rose was strikingly similar to a bond I wrote about between Veer and Medha in Red Eyes! The parallels are quite startling!

At the end of the story, I had a lump in my throat. Sweetness and authenticity come together to make this middle-grade verse novel quite a rewarding read.