The Sweetest Sound by Sherri Winston (review)

Cadence Mariah Jolly’s mother left her small Pennsylvania town to pursue her dream of becoming a singer. Now Cadence’s most treasured dreams are to become a famous writer and to sing a duet, publicly, with her mother, but she is too painfully introverted to talk above a whisper in public. But boy, can she sing! When she promises God she’ll sing for others if she gets a new keyboard, He keeps His end of the bargain while she is still too afraid to keep hers. She decides to make a video of herself, distort her appearance, and send it privately to her choir director, but she messes up the privacy settings and the thing goes viral, eventually leading Cadence not only to keep her promise to God but to realize what’s been holding her back all along. Even though she doesn’t speak up in public, Cadence has a lot to say and a lot of energy with which to say it in writing, producing a narrative voice fizzing with exasperation and anxiety that many shy kids will empathize with. She has a keen eye for the types, if not stereotypes, of her close-knit interracial community, poking gentle fun at the single ladies at her church when they find out the new choir director is single and describing the vibrant gospel music scene she longs to enter. Cadence is also extremely well read, so there are hat-tips to many contemporary middle-grade novels throughout the book. Readers with unspoken dreams of their own will enjoy this peek into the inner world of someone who comes to realize that it sometimes takes a leap of faith to land where God wants you to be.