Calvin and the Sugar Apples by Inês F. Oliveira and a few illustrations by Vanessa Balleza is a cute story about friendship and loss. There are a few illustrations that help highlight a few points of the story. The story is a hit or miss for most people (a few might be in between, like I was, but I don’t see a lot of middle ground).
Our young heroine is a girl who might be on the autism scale, or is just a bit young/naïve as she is around aged 10 or 11-years-old (or since the book is set in Portugal, the author is Portuguese, there might be a translation issue for me). She doesn’t seem to “grasp” some social graces, but also seems to have a really good heart. When she learns of her beloved pet, a chinchilla named Calvin, supposed death (she didn’t see him/the body, so it didn’t happen), she will do whatever it takes to find him. But in the meantime, she must deal with a best friend who didn’t want her to dance with her in the talent show, deal with the fact she doesn’t have a talent (or maybe she does, as she learns what talent can mean), and will make the new girl be her friend. Of course, things work out in the end and she deals with the loss of her pet, she finds a way to declare her independence from her parents, she realizes that friendships change, and sometimes you need to be the one that listens instead of the one who talks all the time. Of course there is a bit of a bumpy road in between.
The illustrations were black and white in my online reader copy (though currently available), and not overly plentiful, but I think this means it is for ages 8 to 10/young 11-12.