When Friendship Followed Me Home [Paperback]

If you have middle schoolers who are too young to fully grasp John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and love dogs, give them this sweet tearjerker.  — School Library Journal

In this beguiling tearjerker, a foster kid's luck slowly changes after he befriends a scruffy pup he finds outside the library. --Peoplemagazine

Ben Coffin has never been one for making friends. As a former foster kid, he knows people can up and leave without so much as a goodbye. Ben prefers to spend his time with the characters in his favorite sci-fi books…until he rescues an abandoned mutt from the alley next-door to the Coney Island Library. Scruffy little Flip leads Ben to befriend a fellow book-lover named Halley—yes, like the comet—a girl unlike anyone he has ever met. Ben begins thinking of her as “Rainbow Girl” because of her crazy-colored clothes and her laugh, pure magic, the kind that makes you smile away the stormiest day.  Rainbow Girl convinces Ben to write a novel with her.  But as their story unfolds Ben’s life begins to unravel, and Ben must discover for himself the truth about friendship and the meaning of home.ANew York Times Book ReviewEditors' Choice
APeoplemagazine Popular Pick
A Summer 2016 Kids’ Indie Next Pick
APublishers Weekly Best of Summer Pick 

[T]his bittersweet, well-paced book…left me with faith that people can feel discarded, as though everything they love will be taken from them, and still end up whole, if they are touched by love of friendship.  — TheNew York TimesBook Review 

Griffin writes beautifully about family, friendship, belonging, and loss in a story that is sure to leave every reader with at least a tear in his or her eye, if not a pile of soggy tissues. --Examiner