This was a sweet little kids book explaining more adult topics. It is something I would highly recommend.

I am always down for books that show LGBTQ+ families and this one.did a phenomenal job showing how Jeremiah had to adjust to his dad's new life.

Jeremiah just wants to enjoy the summer with his dad but has a hard time adjusting to his new stepdad who constantly embarrasses him.

The main character of this book had to deal with a lot of changes in his life—still dealing with his parents' divorce and living in a different city over the summers, now he has to make new friends, handle a grumpy new neighbor, find things to do while his dad is at work, and somehow deal with his dad's extremely embarrassing boyfriend. All of this is tackled with care, appropriately for the intended agegroup and kept interesting, without dumbing anything down.

This book leaves you wanting more. I loved every bit of this book. It had everything you need for a great middle grade book diversity, inclusion, love, friendship, family bonding, death, acceptance, and much more. There are multiple characters in this story that are really well written. The story is about Jeremiah finding acceptance and redeveloping his bond with his father and his father’s life style. This book really deals with some sensitive issues really well. Jeremiah did not really accept who his dad was as a person until he met a girl that lives across the street from this dad’s apartment named Sage. This book is great to read anytime of the year but especially good to read during PRIDE month. This is a great read for middle grade students that may have trouble dealing with parents that may be apart of the LGBT+ community. You will laugh, you will cry and you will cheer and by the end this book will leave you wanting more. Thank you Netgalley and publishers Red Chair/One Elm for the opportunity to read this book in advance.

Charming, funny, and heartwarming. Second Dad Summer is a story about growth, prejudice, acceptance, and family.

Since his parents are divorced, Jeremiah spends the summer with his dad and his dad's new very flamboyant boyfriend. Jeremiah hates how Michael acts and how much attention he draws, but over the course of the book Jeremiah has to reevaluate his feelings.

One of my favorite moments is this simple interaction: When Jeremiah and his friend Sage go to the parade together with her two mom's and Jeremiah's dad and his boyfriend, Jeremiah turns to Sage and says, "We probably look like a normal family." Sage responds, "Not normal, just straight."

Jeremiah is spending the summer with his dad and his dad’s boyfriend, Michael. While Jeremiah has known for a long time that his dad is bisexual, he still isn’t comfortable with Michael and struggles to form a connection with him.

I loved the storyline and Jeremiah learns to accept Michael for how he is.

I would highly recommend this book to everone and think this should be in every school's library.

#oneelmbooks #NetGalley

This book should be in all middle school libraries!
What was I thinking- it should be in all libraries! And I think required reading for all middle school students, and maybe even those younger- it'd be a perfect read for parents and kids to discuss.

Second Dad Summer is an entertaining, heart-warming, thought-provoking read. Jeremiah learns a lot about himself, life, love, and friendship the summer he spends with his dad, and his dad's new boyfriend. I loved the relationships that were built and developed in this book and I liked how Jeremiah started to see things, and people, in a different light. His friendship with Sage especially helped him in that respect. She made him see that "normal" wasn't necessarily better.
I loved how diverse this book was, in all aspects. And how things were presented in an age-appropriate manner, but didn't shy away from some tough topics

I really enjoyed everything about this sweet story, even if it made me cry!

I loved this book - when it ended, I wanted to read more about Jeremiah, his Dad and Michael. Maybe it will be the start of a series? A sweet middle school book about differences and learning to love, in all its forms. Jeremiah is spending the summer with his Dad and his Dad's new boyfriend, Michael. Michel is loud and proud and Jeremiah knows he is uncomfortable with him. Will he be able to accept Michael into his life? This book not only has well-developed secondary characters, it acts as a great middle school introduction to the LGBTQ community, learning alongside Jeremiah new terms and history of the community, integrated deftly into the story. It acts as a love letter to Minneapolis, creating a strong setting that is used as almost another character in the story. It also brings up other topics, such as death, divorce and grief. It is truly the story of family, in all its forms, and the surprises life can give us when we lean into relationships and get to know people on a deeper level. I will be adding this book to my classroom, and will strong recommend Second Dad Summer to my students. A big thank you to NetGalley and One Elm Books for the Advanced Copy!

This was such a great read!
All Jeremiah wants is to have a normal summer with his father, but to his dismay his father has moved in with his quirky new boyfriend who is far from normal and overly flamboyant.
This story is about acceptance, family and learning to love.

Eagerly awaiting the next installment in this series

Premise: Son of a divorced dad struggles with his dad’s flamboyant boyfriend. Through caring for others and a small apartment garden, he grows to appreciate they boyfriend’s presence in his and his dad’s life.

As a gay single-parent and author, I absolutely loved this book and all it represents. The story is a great read and direct about shades of queer and generational differences of opinions within the LGBTQ+ community. Thank you, Mr. Klas for putting a new voice out there for middle school readers. The only critique I would have is that the illustrations and cover, although of great quality, suggest a younger audience. It’s firmly in the middle-grade reading level.

I enjoyed Second Dad Summer by Benjamin Klas. It is an enjoyable middle grade novel full of diverse characters of various sexualities, races, and genders. These characters are enjoyable and well-formed in a way that children will relate to them.

Below this point there may be spoilers.

There were several aspects I wish would have been cleared up in the narrative. One character continually calls another a "pansy", which is not a kind word to call someone. It is revealed that this character is gay, and that he fought for gay rights at Stonewall. It is obvious that this bothers Michael, as his treatment of Michael does. The readers' sympathy for this character is supposed to be formed through Jeremiah having formed this bond with him, that he doesn't like Michael - because Jeremiah doesn't like Michael either. Though Jeremiah does have a moment later on where he realizes the reason he liked Mr. Keeler was that Mr. Keeler didn't like Michael,I wish it had been more explicitly stated that what Mr. Keeler was doing was a form of homophobia. It does not matter that Mr. Keeler was gay, this was still an act of homophobia by him.

There was another reader who mentioned they wished Jeremiah had realized more explicitly that he'd been prejudiced against Michael, and I agree. Much of that prejudice came from wanting his parents to get back together and not from the fact that Michael is a gay man, but this can often get lost, so I'm unsure how I feel about that.

Neither of these two things detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book. It was a great display of friendship, specifically between Sage and Jeremiah, and a good display of divorced parents still getting along and working towards the well-being of their child. The interjection of various parts of queer culture were also great to see in a middle grade novel, as these are things that kids should be aware of but might not be.

I enjoyed reading this novel, and I think that kids will too.

Things aren’t always as we perceive them.

Jeremiah’s summer is different than planned. He has looked forward to spending time with his dad, but his dad’s boyfriend, Michael, is there. Jeremiah is determined to not like Michael. Michael rides a colorful bike, cooks organic food, and tries hard to get to know Jeremiah, even though Jeremiah goes out of his way to show Michael he wants nothing to do with him.

Jeremiah is getting more out of sorts, until he meets Sage. As he and Sage get to know each other, Jeremiah starts enjoying his summer more. Little by little, he realizes that Michael is a good man, and best of all, Michael makes his dad happy.

Jeremiah learns to be himself and accept others as they are. He learns that appearances can be deceiving; there is more to people than what he sees.

This book helps fill a gap in representation and teaches readers a little about history that is often left out of official school curricula. It also helps readers see below the surface of people’s appearances and learn acceptance.

I received a free eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this book!! I think it is so important to teach children when they are most impressionable and this book had so many lessons. I was particularly impressed with the teaching regarding pronouns.

When I was a child I used to sleep with my favourite books under my pillow. I loved this book and I think it would have spent a lot of time under my childhood pillow. I don't generally read children's books but this caught my eye on Netgalley. It is a really lovely story focusing on family, friends, love and acceptance.

Jeremiah's parents are divorced. He usually spends the summer with his dad but this year his dad (who is bisexual) has a new boyfriend called Michael. Jeremiah thinks Michael is irritating. He behaves like a tour guide when they are out together, he rides a ridiculous bicycle and he keeps wanting to involve Jeremiah in things. Thankfully there are other interesting people in their apartment block, like the grumpy elderly neighbour and the young girl with two mums, but Jeremiah still has to stay with Michael and his dad, although he wishes he could have his dad to himself.

Over the summer Jeremiah begins to learn how to appreciate family and friends and he gets a chance to be a friend and be part of a family and maybe Michael may not be that bad after all.

This is a lovely book with pictures as well. I enjoyed how it explored Jeremiah's feelings and his relationships with the people in his life. It was very heartwarming and I loved it so much I ordered a copy for myself. Perhaps I might keep this copy under my pillow.

A lovely book for both children and adults.

Copy provided via NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

4.5 star review.
What an absolutely adorably heart warming read this book is!
This book has so much depth to it and I loved how real the story was.
The book has great family dynamics, friendships, loss, love and even gardening within its pages and I absolutely loved it.

I was so sad the book ended as I could of continued reading it forever! I really hope there will be a second book.

I would like to thank you for the eARC of this book which was kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Second Dad Summer is a middle-grade novel about the boy named Jeremiah and his wish to have a normal summer with his dad. However, his dad now has a boyfriend named Michael which Jeremiah really hates (at the beginning). This story shows how Jeremiah is spending his summers and how he develops relationships with others and how he meets new people and how they affect him. I like the inner dialogue of Jeremiah and how you could see how he feels in certain situations. I think it is a very good book for middle graders to read because it has diverse characters and it deals with various emotions: love, grief, acceptance. The illustrations were beautiful and the author did a great job by showing the diversity and how normal is to have two mums or two dads or to use the pronoun they.

Even though this was a fairly simple story, I found it to be a nice, light and refreshing read. I thought that Jeremiah as a character was pretty realistic in the way that he handled his situation as a child in a new and seemingly strange situation. The ending was cute and made me chuckle a little. Overall it was a pretty good book.

This! Was! So! Cute!

Written by anyone else, Jeremiah wouldn’t be as well developed and would come across as annoying, but his fears are valid and he has some really funny lines, especially when he’s coming up against Michael.

The side characters are also amazingly well written. Sage has two moms, and taught me about Hmong culture, which I actually never knew about before! And Michael’s cast of friends are incredible – they actually talk about marriage equality and if it’s assimilating into gay culture, and there’s a non-binary person who has such a funny description.

I also thought Mr Keeler would be the typical grumpy homophobe who is changed through ~love and acceptance~ but no! He’s gay himself! And he talks about fighting for gay rights and the Aids Crisis! Can you imagine my delight? A children’s book about the discourse between out&proud gays and fucktheyouth gays? Outstanding.

I know this is for middle-grade readers, but I would definitely recommend it.

There is hope for Middle Grade fiction.

It is rare that any story evokes a laugh-out-loud moment from me, a feeling of melancholy or even tears. That Benjamin Klas managed to do all three in his book is, well, astounding. Written at an uncomplicated Middle Grade level (ages 8-12), "Second Dad Summer" excels both in its simplicity and depth. Klas’ debut novel shines by highlighting incredibly detailed characters, nuanced plot points and a warm, narrative flow.

The story revolves around Jeremiah, who visits his Dad for the Summer. Dad, as it turns out, has a live-in boyfriend who is constantly trying to ingratiate himself into Jeremiah’s life. Jeremiah, as most kids who are going through new circumstances, is none-to-pleased. Add a cranky neighbor, a mom who lives miles away but calls routinely to check-in, and a new friend to the mix, for the makings of a summer with interesting and surprising plot twists. No, the biggest twist is not that Dad has a boyfriend. That’s established in the first couple of pages. More interesting things are in store. But this review, is spoiler free!

Klas’ use of language is both sophisticated and nuanced. While still keeping the reading ability of his target audience in mind, Klas manages to evoke complicated feelings and thoughts. His characters speak in plain words, but imagery still flows. For example, Jeremiah observes: “[w]e all sat down, Dad between Michael and me, connecting us and thankfully separating us too.” Yet another example: “[e]ven though I knew I needed to, it felt wrong to break apart the roots which clung so tightly to the soil they had known for so long.” The ability to write in pictures is rare. To see it in a debut story is rarer. To see it in a story for the Middle Grade level is rarer still. This is Karl’s first book; hopefully it’s the first of many.

My one quibble with the book is the illustrations. Notably, Jeremiah’s Dad does not live up to the description in the story; and, Michael is virtually always in the same stereotypical effeminate pose. Fortunately, the illustrations are brief and do not detract from an otherwise outstanding debut.

This is a definite buy and keep for the Middle Grade level. It should be a part of any well-rounded library. And that's, why it stays on my bookshelf. [End.]