Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome back Rebecca Bendheim to reveal the cover of her second contemporary Middle Grade, How to Take a Risk, releasing February 9, 2027 from Viking Books for Young Readers! Here’s the story:
The summer before seventh grade, adrenaline junkie Reagan is excited to be with her summer best friend, Zander, and cross every item off of their annual “Risk List,” a list of dares to complete across their coastal Maine town. She’ll get a break from her family friends, Madi and Olive, and their new obsession with crushes and boys, and be able to focus on rock-jumping, hill-skateboarding, and camping out in the cemetery.
But when Zander asks Reagan to be his girlfriend, everything changes. What Reagan hoped would be a fun-filled summer like any other quickly becomes the most complicated of her life—especially when she realizes she doesn’t have a crush on Zander but on her friend Olive instead. How long can she stay Zander’s girlfriend when she knows her true feelings?
And just when things can’t get any more tangled for Reagan, her mom tells her that she’s pregnant, with Reagan’s new baby sister scheduled to arrive at the end of summer. Suddenly, buried feelings come to the surface, and Reagan turns to increasingly scary dares to avoid the emotions bubbling up inside.
But she can’t avoid these feelings forever. And maybe some changes are good. Maybe this summer is about discovering that the biggest risk of all is learning how to be herself.
And here’s the beautiful cover, designed by Anabeth Bostrup and Opal Roengchai with art by Dion MDB!
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | Oliver and Friends (Signed)
Rebecca Bendheim is the author of When You’re Brave Enough and a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She types poems around the country with the Typewriter Rodeo poetry troupe and lives in Maine with her wife. She has bungee jumped, skydived, and swum with sharks, but the biggest risk she’s ever taken is putting her deepest emotions into books. Rebecca can be found on social media @RebeccaBendheim and on her website at rebeccabendheim.com
Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo: Lacey-and-Grace, best friends since they were toddlers. Grace and her moms were practically family. But at school, being lumped together with overeager, worm-obsessed, crushes-on-everyone Grace meant Lacey never quite fit in—and that’s why at her new middle school, Lacey plans to reinvent herself. This time, she’s going to be cool. She’s going to be normal.
Bishop left without a word. Shiloh never knew why. Four years later, neither of them has recovered.
Brady Mason couldn’t care less about fashion. She likes what she knows: baseball, comfortable clothes, and pork roll with egg and cheese. When Brady’s friends notice that she looks strangely like fashion editor Elena Lavigne, they start the rumor that Brady is Elena’s long-lost daughter. They’ll make a few TikTok videos, get some fun buzz online about their similarities, and that will be the end of it.
