Kyra, just for today

Out March 5, 2024

A Kirkus Best Book of 2024

The follow-up to A Song Called Home, if not quite a sequel. It’s two years later, and Kyra is 13 and…going through some stuff (more on that below). Find it wherever you like to get books in hardcover, ebook, and audio.

Praise for kyra

⭐️ “[Shows how] children pay the price of living in families where alcohol is abused. Authentic and heartbreaking, but hopeful.” - Kirkus, starred review

⭐️ A Junior Library Guild selection

⭐️ “This tender middle-grade novel underscores the beauty of uncertainty and having enough faith in one another to try over and over again.” - Booklist

⭐️ “Readers will root for Kyra as she learns to trust herself and those around her.” - School Library Journal

From award-winning author Sara Zarr comes a gorgeously crafted and deeply personal story about a young girl, her alcoholic mother, and the hope that ties them together.

Kyra has always felt like she’s a bit too much. Too tall. Too loud. Too earnest. But she’s okay with that, because she’s got her mom. Ever since Mom got sober about five years ago, she and Kyra have always been there for each other—something Kyra is thankful for every week when she attends her group meetings with other kids of alcoholics. When Mom is managing her cleaning business and Kyra is taking care of things at home, maybe, she thinks, she’s not too much. Maybe, she’s just enough.

Then seventh grade starts, and everything Kyra used to be able to count on feels unsure. Kyra’s best friend, Lu, is hanging out with eighth graders, and Mom is unusually distant. When Mom starts missing work, sleeping in, and forgetting things, Kyra doesn’t dare say “relapse." But soon not saying that word means not saying anything at all—to Lu or to her support group. And when Kyra suspects that her worst fears might be real, she starts to question whether being just enough is not enough at all.

With sensitivity and candor, acclaimed author Sara Zarr tells a heartfelt, personal story about finding hope in even the most difficult places, and love in even the most complicated relationships.