👍🤷‍♂️Once For Yes (2025)

by Allie Millington

4Rbooks 4/6 grades 6-8

Amazon 4.7/5 reading age 8-12

goodreads 4.06/5

Common Sense Media not yet reviewed

Synopsis

Prue continues her shows every night just like she promised her sister Lina. She is having problems, like most of her family, moving on from loss. life gets more challenging when they learn the owner of the apartment building where they live is selling it and they all need to move by the end of the month.

Prue is upset, not just that she has to move, but that she will be leaving the place she shared with Lina. She is afraid all of the memories will be left behind. She teams up with Lewis, a boy from across the street to try and stop the demolition. She doesn't know that Lewis hides a secret that is very important to her family's healing.

The two work together but never realize that the building, "The Odenburgh," is trying to help them, too. They need to make their stories important enough, and valuable enough, to stop the owner. Either they save their home or they learn to move on.

Parent Guidelines

One of the main characters in the story is the apartment building, The Odenburgh.

We read it's thoughts and it interacts with the other characters.

Prue and her family are dealing with grief from the loss of their daughter/sister Lina.

You eventually learn she was hit on the street by a drunk driver.

Prue and her sister Fifi struggle to get along.

Lina and Lewis used too look at each other from across the street using binoculars.

Prue and Lewis try to communicate with the spirit of Lina.

Lewis carries many charms and omens with him. He uses them to find answers.

A dog is let loose in the elevator where he often poops or urinates.

Recommendation

There is much to like about this book. It could be very helpful for children suffering loss as they read about the different ways people dealt with grief in the story. Having the apartment building be a character in the story was unique and gave an unusual perspective to the plot. The way the tenants become one big family is admirable.

The reason I can't completely recommend the book is that so much of it deals with the ideas of the supernatural: spirits, omens, fortunes, etc. Christian parents and teachers could use this to highlight the difference between how the world deals with grief and how Christian rejoice in hope. I worry about non-Christian children thinking there are ways to communicate with the dead, and vice-versa, and thinking that inanimate objects might have a soul and want to communicate with us, too.

It's a qualified recommendation. For a specific purpose and with Christian parent or teacher supports this is a very good novel.