I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda with Liz Welch

This is my book club's book for this month, and I finished it just in time for our discussion in two days. I don't know that I would have gotten around to reading it if it hadn't been for book club--it sounded good, but maybe not good enough for me to invest energy into reading it. It's the real life story of a middle-school girl from Pennsylvania who writes to a boy from Zimbabwe for a school pen pal project, and they begin a correspondence that lasts for years and ends with Caitlin and her family helping to bring Martin to the United States to study for college. I loved how these two became so close and were such good friends through writing these letters to each other, although I never quite "got" how they felt so close through these occasional letters that didn't seem very long. (I mean, they said they felt like they were best friends but I didn't feel it from reading this book.) It was also kind of annoying to read Caitlin's sections from her middle school and high school years--hers were filled with random drama and extremely immature problems, like friends fighting at school, and it was definitely boring to read those sections compared to Martin's problems with no food or money for his family in Zimbabwe (and Caitlin did acknowledge that). I thought the second half of the book was more interesting and had more of a narrative arc when they were trying to get Martin to America to study, and I sped through that part quickly, but I think the first half of the book, when they were just getting to know each other and Caitlin was dealing with boy drama, could definitely have been condensed somehow.

I could see this book being a very good book for middle schoolers to read to open their eyes to how people in other parts of the world live. Caitlin was so shocked by Martin's poverty and totally unaware of her privilege, and I think many middle schoolers would also have that same revelation. I also think it is eye opening to see how stuck Martin was in his life and situation if it weren't for Caitlin's family helping him--in America, we tend to think that if we work hard enough we'll be able to overcome everything, but Martin had no chance of improving his life except for his extreme stroke of luck to be able to make good friends with Americans who wanted to help him. I thought this book was sweet, although it maybe could have been a bit shorter to really be great.