A Sister Like You – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: Family, LGBTQ+, singing, identity, responsibility.
Children’s book title: A Sister Like You.
Children’s author: Sarah Hagger-Holt.
Genre: Children’s fiction.
Published by: Usborne.
ISBN: 9781836046943.
Recommended for children aged: 10-14.
First published: Paperback May 2026.
This children’s book is ideal for: exploring what or who makes us the person we and others think we are.
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Our review:
Thirteen-year-old Ella and eleven-year-old Ari are starting at St Hildegard’s School for Girls and both are having trouble fitting in. Joining the school’s Finding Our Voices choir introduces them to each other and soon becomes their happy place. Discovering they are both adopted gives them something else in common, but then, amazingly, they find out that they are actually related too!
As Christmas gets ever closer, they prepare for the annual school trip to a small French town for a weekend of international choir concerts. The girls are glad to be able to spend some time away from Ari’s two dads and Ella’s straight-laced mum. Maybe they can work out how to deal with the life-changing discovery they’ve just made. Then Ella gets bad news from home and panics, but Ari is there to help, if only she’ll let her. Then maybe, once they get home, they can get their parents to connect better as well?
Our verdict:
A Sister Like You is an uplifting, feel-good novel about the problems which beset far more teenagers than we probably realise. Ella and Ari both know they are adopted, and the author deals sympathetically with the issues which arise when Ella is bullied because of this, and Ari has problems with impulsive behaviour and breaks her leg just before she starts her new school, where she knows no one.
The storyline also tackles bullying, school refusal, single parents, and same-sex marriages, as well as caring for an older relative, panic attacks, lack of confidence, and impulsivity. It also shows how a school can encourage everyone to be true to themselves, learn about responsibility, and accept their own and everyone else’s gender identity. There are some negative reactions, but overall, this is a book which gives a positive take on the minefield of different situations and emotions most eleven-to-fourteen-year-olds have to deal with on a daily basis.
Ella and Ari are sympathetically drawn, as are their families, who also learn quite a lot during this story! Set around a forthcoming trip to France with the school choir, both parents and daughters learn the importance of letting go, if only for a short while, of their preconceptions and accepting those they love, flaws and all!
Teaching points and book club discussion ideas:
- Starting a new school is never easy. Do you think joining Year 9 would be harder than joining Year 7? What are your reasons for this?
- St Hildegard’s has lots of different clubs and activities to take part in. How do you think Ari and Ella would have settled in without the choir?
- In a cross-curricular activity with art or IT, design a poster advertising a club you would like to attend. It can be one already available or a new idea.
- Ella’s mum and Ari’s dads all worry about their girls, but in different ways. Would the two dads’ laid-back demeanour about everything be better or worse than having your opinions dismissed or ignored?
- How would you feel about an annual trip away with your club of choice?
- Was it good that the choir concerts weren’t a competition, or would you prefer to be trying to win something?
- Do you think Ella and Ari’s relationship will change as they get older? If so, in what way?
Many thanks to Usborne for the review copy.
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