Twelve-year-old Willa just wants everything to stay the same. In fact, as someone with Sensory Processing Disorder, she feels like she needs everything to stay the same. But life happens and that’s not possible. She has to move on to middle school.  She should be happy her dad fell in love again and wants to get married to a nice person, who also happens to be her best friend’s mom. It’s a lot to process and throughout this novel we can see not only how hard it is for Willa, but we get to see her grow, mature and see how her relationships with the important people in her life become stronger, all because she learns to accept change.

Not If I Can Help It is an in-depth look at what it would be like to be a 12-year-old living with Sensory Processing Disorder. Author Carolyn Meckler writes such a comprehensive examination and does it beautifully, because she is telling her son’s story through Willa. This novel is the perfect glimpse into someone who struggles with things that most people wouldn’t think about, but the biggest take home lesson from this novel is that we all struggle with something, it’s just that some are better at hiding it than others.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Scholastic Press (A Scholastic Imprint)

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  2 religious exclamations. 

Violence/Gore:  Character tells a story of a doll that kills people. 

Sex/Nudity:  Man and woman hold hands (3 times); man and woman kiss; College-age boy mentions his boyfriend.

Mature Subject Matter:

Divorce; Sensory Processing Disorder.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None