It’s time to celebrate John David Anderson’s latest book, KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET! Read on for more about this sensitive sibling story.

Keep It Like a Secret
by John David Anderson

Walden Pond Press, 2024

ISBN 978-0063279315

Review copy kindly provided by the publisher.

About the Book

From the first moment Morgan can remember, Claire has always been there. Big sister and little brother. Cat and Mouse. They’ve always understood each other, saved each other, seen each other. And they stuck to their own personal code, unwritten but understood, that siblings were inseparable, that they had each other’s backs, no matter what.

At least, they used to.

Somewhere along the line, things between them shifted. Claire started fighting more with Mom, storming out of the house, spending more and more time away, and Morgan felt his sister and best friend slipping away. Now he spends nearly every night sitting awake in his room, waiting for the sound of her key in the lock.

It’s a sound he hasn’t heard in nearly a week, ever since her and Mom’s worst fight ever. So when Claire finally calls and tells Morgan she wants to spend the day together, just the two of them, he knows this might be his only chance—not just to convince her to come home, but to remind her how good things used to be, and could be again.

But Claire has her own plan for the day. One that will mean that, no matter what happens, things between them are going to change forever.

About the Author

John David Anderson is the author of more than a dozen beloved and bestselling books for kids, including the New York Times Notable Book Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Posted, One Last Shot, Stowaway, Riley’s Ghost, The Greatest Kid in the World and many more. A dedicated root beer connoisseur and chocolate fiend, he lives with his ever-patient wife and two ornery cats, MJ and Parker, in Indianapolis, IN. You can visit him online at johndavidanderson.org.

My Thoughts

As has been made clear with so many of his previous books, John David Anderson is a master of writing books about serious topics that have all the feels without being unbearably sad. Here, we’re looking at a family that’s been falling apart, even as our narrator Morgan tries to pull it back together again. Claire read to Morgan when he was a child, tucked him into bed, taught him how to walk to school, to draw comics, and to do flips on the trampoline, and explained the rules of their Sibling Code. Now Morgan is in middle school and Claire a senior in high school, and her increasingly upsetting arguments with their mother, are tearing apart everything that kept the family together. (As a parent myself, I found myself really wanting to recommend some coaching for the family – Sanity School for the mother, probably dialectical behavior therapy for all – but this is a novel and not a parenting book, so I will concede the point.)

Flashbacks tell the story of the first time Claire took the two of them on a secret adventure of their own, as Morgan and Claire go out for a day of adventure with what turns out to be very different goals. The adventures – shown in snapshots on the cover – are fun and wild, illuminating both their strong sibling bond while contrasting Claire’s over-the-top whimsy and desire to experience it all against Morgan’s caution. Both of them find themselves exploring the limits of the Code and sharing secrets they’d kept from each other despite it – the reasons for Claire’s running away; the pressure Morgan feels trying to bring the family together. I was rooting for both of them, my heart aching early on knowing that Morgan’s dreams couldn’t come true. The ending is bittersweet, leaving both Morgan and Claire wiser and still with room for future growth. Recommended for readers who want to smile while having their heartstrings tugged at.

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