Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: The Princess of Baker Street 
AUTHOR: Mia Kerick
PUBLISHER: Harmony Ink
LENGTH: 156 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2019
BLURB:
When she was a child, Joey Kinkaid, assigned as a boy at birth—wearing Mom’s purple sundress and an imaginary crown—ruled the Baker Street neighborhood with a flair and imagination that kept the other kids captivated. Day after day, she led them on fantastic after-school adventures, but those innocent childhood days are over, and the magic is gone. The princess is alone.
Even Eric Sinclair, the Prince Eric to Joey’s Princess Ariel, has turned his back on his former friend, watching in silence as Joey is tormented at school. Eric isn’t proud of it, but their enchanted youth is over, and they’ve been thrust into a dog-eat-dog world where those who conform survive and those who don’t… well, they don’t. Eric has enough to deal with at home, where his mother has abandoned him to live in isolation and poverty.
But Eric can’t stay on the sidelines forever. When Joey finally accepts her female gender and comes to school wearing lip gloss, leggings, and a silky pink scarf, the bullies readily take the opportunity she hands them, driving Joey to attempt suicide and leaving Eric at a crossroads—one that will influence both their lives in not just the present, but the future.
Is there a chance the two teens can be friends again, and maybe even more?
REVIEW:
I don’t often read book with children this young (13/14) but I was caught by the description and decided to give it a chance. This is not a romance, although there are some very sweet tentative steps toward a romance. There is a promise of something to come, but that isn’t what this story is about.
What I find so refreshing about this book, is that everything happens so naturally. The bullying isn’t over the top, the school is as helpful as it can be and not everyone is mean, while they all still keep their distance. In short, nothing is sensationalised and it all feels like something that not only could, but is happening all over the world.
When they were very young, Eric and Joey were best friends. In those days, Joey was “The Princess of Baker Street”, unofficial leader of the Baker Street kids, wearing his mother’s dress and playing the leading role in their games. All of them, especially Eric, would follow him anywhere. But then they grew up and when they entered Middle School everything changed. Suddenly it wasn’t cool for Joey to wear dresses anymore, and some of his old friends became his worse enemies.
The story is told through the eyes of the thirteen-year-old Eric, and I’m not going to lie, I struggled a little at the beginning, getting into his head and seeing things through his eyes. If you go into this expecting a mature, grown-up perspective you’ll be sorely disappointed, but if you go in with an open mind this peep inside the mind of someone who is on the threshold between child and teenager, a crucial age for anyone, this book is a must-read.
Eric has his own problems, but he doesn’t appear to see them as terrible as the adults reading might. In fact, he’s very matter-of-fact as he becomes more and more alone as the book progresses. No wonder he’s terrified of losing his standing among his “friends” they’re literally all he has.
The tension between what he needs to do for his own safety and what he knows he ought to do increases through the book and causes him so much suffering that from the outside we have to say was it worth it and objectively it absolutely wasn’t. A mature person balancing the competing loyalties, the moral dilemmas and the excruciating longing, would very likely have thrown their hand with Joey if not from the start then at least by half way through the book, but the key to this entire story is that these are not mature people and they’re anything but objective. Children, by their very nature, look out for themselves first, especially when they don’t have anyone else to look out for them, and as much as Eric suffers for maintaining the status quo, he honestly believes, and may be right, that he would suffer far more if the sided with Joey.
Almost the whole of the book is a long, slow decline for both Eric and Joey. Although not entirely expressed and/or recognised by the characters, it isn’t difficult to read between the lines. However, although the book deals with some difficult topics, it isn’t dark. There is a lightness in the writing, even at the lowest points, that conveys hope for the future, and sometimes it’s downright laugh-out-loud funny.
Eric has quite an unique perspective, and even though his circumstances decline we can see a definite maturing as the story progresses from the unique perspective of “listening in” to his thought processes. This was my favourite thing about the book. Because of this, Eric is by far the most three dimensional and well-rounded character. Although we learn a lot about the other characters, especially Joey, both as he is now, and—through Eric’s memories—as he was back when they were seven and Joey still ruled the street, we don’t get the same detail we have through Eric’s inner dialogue. That being said, they’re still very well written and fleshed out. We can feel the simmering anger in Travis, and discover why it’s there. We can sense the inherent goodness in Emily and know she isn’t happy about the situation either, but there is the same sense of helplessness as with Eric.
And Joey… Well, Joey is a sweetheart. Although we only see him through Eric’s eyes and can’t get a complete handle on the way he works, the constant comparisons between who he was six years ago and who he is now are poignant and stand in stark contrast. Little things, like his mother hovering on the doorstep until he gets on the bus, and the rather too formal clothes he wears speak volumes of what’s going on with Joey, and the point where he starts rebelling and wearing progressively more feminine clothes to school makes us feel happy he’s attempting to let his true self come through, but at the same time apprehensive because Eric is apprehensive, certain no good can come of it.
The climax is both dramatic and not. Part of that is Eric’s typical matter-of-fact way of looking at things, and part is because it was just so natural and realistic, and there is almost a sense of relief because, like a boil being lanced, it could only get better from there. I’m not going to spoil the story by telling you whether it does get better from there, but there’s more to the story; much more.
The writing is flawless, given it’s told in first person, present tense through the eyes of a young teenager. I didn’t feel at any point that the author had slipped out of that perspective.
The book has many themes and messages but I think one of the most significant is that young people are resilient and often products of their environment. Their young minds and personalities can be shaped by their families, friends and the situations they find themselves in. It’s not enough to look at who a person is on the surface, because we don’t know what’s going on underneath and it’s easy to judge. Someone may be struggling more than you know, but they keep slogging on because it’s the only thing they can do. Although someone may be “different”, that doesn’t mean they are better or worse, and we are all guilty of judging by difference in so many different ways. It’s easy categorize people and to look down on them because of it—poor, gay, disabled, alternative, loud, transgender—so many labels and all of them carry stigma to someone. So what if Eric smells bad or if Joey wears a scarf to school?
The overarching message for me, though, was that no matter how bad things get, no matter how difficult it may be to go on, there is always hope that, no matter how unlikely it might seems, things can—and given half a chance will—be alright in the end, and that if we just open our eyes, look under the surface and stop judging people, we can help other achieve their happy ending.
If ever there was a book that needs to be found in a school library this is it. It teaches without preaching and you get so drawn into the story you don’t even realise there are lessons to be learned until you think about it at the end. This would be a really good book for schoolchildren to discuss in class.
RATING: 
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