Simon Sort of Says is funny, and well written, and at the same time thoughtful and trauma-sensitive. It also features mild profanity, inappropriate jokes and sexual innuendo, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And it’s written for middle grade readers, with a twelve year old seventh grader as the protagonist. So not for everyone.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading my first volume of middle grade fiction published in 2023. Simon and his parents move to Grin and Bear It, Nebraska, a place with “no internet and no cell phones and no TV and no radio.” Why they move to this place, a National Quiet Zone where scientists study radio waves from outer space, is a complicated story, and if you want the story to unfold gradually (as I think the author intended it to do), don’t read the blurb on the inside front dust jacket. I would certainly have preferred to figure out what happened to Simon and his parents that brought them to Grin and Bear It over the course of the story instead of being hit with the big reveal in the blurb.

And I would have preferred that the book itself left out the sex jokes, which seem a little too informed for twelve year olds, and the few instances of profanity. Honestly, the humor in the book overall is really funny, but again seems a little too witty and mature for a bunch of even very intelligent twelve year olds. Simon’s new friends in Grin and Bear It are Agate, an autistic girl who lives with her large and quirky family on a goat farm (also ducks and bees), and Kevin, a Filipino-American boy whose mom and dad are astrophysicists. (But Kevin’s dad runs a coffee shop.) If that’s not enough for comedy to ensue there are, in the story, alpacas, emus, a stabby peacock, dead bodies (Simon’s mom is an undertaker), and a squirrel who eats . . . Well, I’ll let you find out what the squirrel eats in the Catholic church, should you decide to read this book.

I am placing this one in the category of “I liked it but can’t recommend it.” There’s some bad or incomplete theology stuck in there, too, but I can’t give specifics without spoilers. So, read it if you’re curious, and give it to the kids if you think it’s harmless. It would have confused my kids–and made them laugh out loud. I’m always looking for clean and humorous stories for middle grade readers, by the way, so if you have suggestions, please comment.