Miss Match (Orca Currents)

Written by Susan Hughes

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-459842069

144 pp.

Ages 9–12

RL 2.8 

April 2025 

With Grade 8 almost finished and summer just weeks away, thirteen-year-old Polly, along with her friends Dev, Zoey, Roger and Matt, starts thinking about how to make a little money for summertime fun like going to the movies and baseball games, enjoying fast food, and shopping. Polly, ever the entrepreneur, comes up with the idea of a matchmaking service for all the Grade 7 and 8 students attending the end-of-year dance.

When they advertise their service and get students to submit applications with a $20 fee–money-back guarantee–they are overwhelmed with responses. They pull in over $2000 and Polly is tasked with setting up a dedicated bank account for the money. When she is unable to do so, Polly lies. It becomes the first of several lies she makes to her friends and her mother to cover up her embarrassment and fears of how they will judge her. Readers will wonder what her classmates would think about the accuracy of the nickname they've given her, i.e., Miss Match, if they knew the discrepancy between what she promises and what she actually does.

Susan Hughes has dazzled this reader with the breadth of her writing. I have reviewed her picture books (e.g., What Happens Next), her middle-grade novels (e.g., Four Seasons of Patrick), her YA (e.g., Virginia), and her non-fiction (e.g., Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World). Each time, Susan Hughes writes with sensitivity and understanding. In Miss Match, she reminds us that everyone comes up with ideas some time, and some of them will be fantastic and some will be ludicrous. How we deal with our successes or our failures will speak more to our natures and strengths than the accolades or the judgements. Susan Hughes knows this and ensures that Polly comes across as a real person, who actually has a great idea but can't always deliver on it because she is shy, she is nervous about being judged, and she is young. Fortunately, she hangs around with a great bunch of people whose understanding of what it's like to be 13 is evident. They don't just forgive, they empathize.

 

While Miss Match is part of the Orca Currents series of high-interest novels for middle-grade students reading below grade level (reading level here is 2.8), Susan Hughes does not take short-cuts by giving readers a simple plot with little substance. She packs in issues of dishonesty, first crushes, inclusion–her friends are diverse in their abilities and disabilities, in their nationalities, and even in their gender-loving nature—and more. She tells the story with sensitivity and understanding but gives readers an ending that is satisfying without being contrived. Perhaps after celebrating a few more birthdays and with a little more experience, Miss Match could see herself in business again, providing a valuable service and growing her entrepreneur skills, one match at a time.