This morning my first professional review for The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez went up: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robin-yardi/the-midnight-war-of-mateo-martinez/

I found out via a twitter friend, while still piled in bed with my kids. “You can give me hugs if it’s bad and high fives if it’s great,” I told them.

“Why would it be bad?” my daughter asked.

“Well, they might not like it…”

I read the whole thing out loud, it was good, really good, then I looked back up to the top and saw the star.

“Oh my G*d—they gave Mommy a star!”

“What does that mean?” My daughter asked, giving me a half hearted high five.

Shortly after this my son cried, wept actually, for about twenty minutes over a cracked candy cane, I toasted all the morning bagels and the kids were late to school.

Clearly, a starred review doesn’t mean that the morning will go smoothly!

For those of you who don’t know what a starred review is or why it would be important, just trust me, this is a moment to celebrate!

Let’s all do the star dance, just for a minute, then go about our business as usual.