I have loved so many books by Renée Watson over the years, from her YA book Piecing Me Together to the middle grade Ryan Hart series up to last year’s picture book Summer is Here and others I didn’t get around to reviewing. Naturally I was thrilled when this ARC showed up in the mail, even if it showed up in the middle of my Cybils reading and I had to postpone reading it for a few months.

All the Blues in the Sky
by Renée Watson

Bloomsbury, 2025

ISBN 978-1547605897

Review copy received from the publisher

Sometimes I feel like I just can’t do sad books, because life is already tough. I went into this book guessing that it was a sad book – it is – but wanting to read it anyway because of the author. I’m so glad I did! Because the truth that this book so beautifully illuminates is that grief is horrible and hard – and you can get through it, and still find joy in life.

Newly thirteen-year-old Sage has been struggling with a range of feelings about her life since her best friend was killed on the way to her birthday celebration. She’s experiencing grief, anger, guilt, and the terrible work of trying to rebuild a life without one of the most important people in it. Her poems go over many aspects of her life – memories of her best friend, that terrible day, their dreams of their futures, as well as everyday events with her family, getting along – and not – with the other kids in her grief support group at school, and getting to know a crush.

This bare description doesn’t adequately explain how deeply we’re drawn into Sage’s story, the intimacies of her relationship with her great-aunt, Aunt Ini, the way she dives into math to avoid thinking about her loss, only to find meaning there as well. Watson’s gorgeous blank verse makes the story work in a way that prose wouldn’t.

…life after losing someone you love
feels like one big ocean of sorrow
and you might feel like you are drowning,

but always there is something to hold on to
to keep you afloat

Renée Watson, All the Blues in the Sky

This is now available in libraries and wherever good books are sold. Go find yourself a copy.