Someone's Gonna End Up Crying

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Author(s)

Jo Knowles

Co-Authors / Illustrators

Glynnis Fawkes

Publisher

Candlewick Press

Genre(s)

Age Range

Release Date

May 26, 2025

ISBN

978-1536231274

Buy This Book

In this authentic and heartfelt middle-grade novel, Maple uses her artwork to help sort through sibling relationships, school drama, and her parents’ increasingly fraught marriage.

Ten-year-old Maple can’t wait for summer: No more math! Adventures with her friends! Best of all, she and Dad are finally going to build a real treehouse. Or are they? Lately Dad has been quick to storm off when he argues with Mom, which happens more and more. Maple seeks refuge in her sketchbook, filling it with comics and other drawings and posing the questions she can’t bring herself to ask anywhere else. She imagines “Dadlandia,” a place that Dad whooshes off to when he’s gone. Maple confides in her favorite tree—her namesake—that she wishes Dad would come home for good. But eventually, Maple will need to step outside her imagination and confront what’s happening for real. For that, she will need support from friends and family—and strength and courage from within. Celebrated author Jo Knowles delivers complex characters and emotions with care, while illustrator Glynnis Fawkes’s powerful illustrations perfectly capture Maple’s creative spirit, her struggles, and her capacity for hope.

Editor review

1 review

One way to deal with sad circumstances

June 06, 2025 (Updated: June 15, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Maple is in fifth grade, and has a very close family relationship with her older sister, Rory, older brother, Gabe, and her parents. There are family movie nights, meals together, and outings. Lately, though, her parents have been bickering a lot, and her father often leaves to go out, claiming he needs "space". This starts to happen so often that Maple, who loves to draw, envisions her father going through "portal potties" into "Dadlandia", where he can be alone and do activities that he enjoys. We see her cartoon style panels depicting his adventures. Maple's father has promised to help her built a tree fort, but once school is out, he never seems to have time. Her friends Katy and Astrid are supportive, and she has other friends at school, like budding Entrepreneur Oliver. After a family dinner of chili that involves a hot sauce challenge, the father says he is going out to get ice cream, but doesn't come back for hours. Maple hears her parents arguing, and overhears her father saying that he's not cut out for holding a job and being a parent. He goes to live in a cabin owned by a family friend for a while. Maple's mom, who is very busy working, steps up to help build the tree fort, and tries to maintain the close family ties and activities. When Maple has a birthday, her father does show up, but there still aren't a lot of answers about how he is dealing with life, and when he will return.

Good Points

Young readers will love Maple's renderings of her dad's supposed wanderings in the comic strip style panels scattered throughout this story. It seems like a lot of marriages hit a rocky spot when children enter late elementary school, and Maple's parents struggles are explained just enough that we can see their effect on Maple and her siblings. Growing up in the 1970s, I was always afraid that my parents would get divorced, even though they never fought; I can't imagine the tension that Maple and others like her feel when parents are actually fighting, and a parent is moving out. There isn't as much of this family tension depicted in middle grade novels, and it's always valuable to see different variations of this experience. There's an inkling that the father might also be having some mental health struggles. I loved the depiction of every day family life, with special meals, local trips, and traditions. Best of all was the family catch phrase, "someone's gonna end up crying", an admonition that is closely related to my own mother's "don't expect me to pay your doctor's bills"!

This is a good choice for readers who find difficult family dynamics interesting to read about and found Knisley's Stepping Stones, Vitalis' Unsinkable Cayenne, or Toalsen's The First Magnificent Summer intriguing.