The In-Between

By: Katie Van Heidrich

Narrated by: Angel Pean

For fans of Enchanted Air by Margarita Engle and Life in Motion by Misty Copeland, this middle grade memoir in verse with “stellar writing [and] perfect pacing” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) chronicles a young girl and her family who must start over after losing their home.

In the early 2000s, thirteen-year-old Katie Van Heidrich has moved more times that she can count, for as long as she can remember. There were the slow moves where you see the whole thing coming. There were the fast ones where you grab what you can in seconds. When Katie and her family come back from an out-of-town funeral, they discover their landlord has unceremoniously evicted them, forcing them to pack lightly and move quickly.

They make their way to an Extended Stay America Motel, with Katie’s mother promising it’s temporary. Within the four walls of their new home, Katie and her siblings, Josh and Haley, try to live a normal life—all while wondering if things would be easier living with their father. Lyrical and forthcoming, Katie navigates the complexities that come with living in-between: in between homes, parents, and childhood and young adulthood, all while remaining hopeful for the future.

Critic reviews

"Angel Pean beautifully narrates this memoir-in-verse about a girl who is struggling to find herself amid a period of turmoil with family and friends. Katie tries to control the world around her as best she can, but with her family forced to move into an extended-stay motel and her best friend and boyfriend in conflict at school, she feels all her efforts are coming undone. Pean strikes the perfect note with her narration, capturing the flow of the verse. Her subtle quietness hints at how deeply Katie worries about her dad’s new wife and her mom’s job woes while feeling like she must be the strong child who can’t express those concerns."