“The Ship We Built” by Lexie Bean • Book Review

Published: May 26, 2020 by Dial Books
Format: Hardcover, English, 287 pages

“I hope someone celebrates me when I change.”

★★★★ (4 / 5 stars) This book so beautifully captures how it feels to be young and confused, to want to be somewhere else when you have nowhere to go, to want to be someone else when you’re told who you should be. Rowan takes such an emotional journey to which truly every young person can relate, and the peace, hope, and love he discovers in himself and through his connection to Sofie, Mr. B, and Nathan are what I hope every kid can find for themselves even on their darkest days.

I am not an emotional reader, and this story brought me to tears multiple times. Bean’s narrative style—told strictly through letters written by Rowan himself—captures fifth-grader logic, feeling, and voice so masterfully. Yet I was consistently shaken by the strokes of genius in statements like, “I just hope I don’t grow any bigger. I want to always be able to fit into one of my favorite places, but lately it hurts to stay small inside a closed box for too long,” and “I hope someone celebrates me when I change.”

The Ship We Built is a beautiful story told beautifully. I would strongly recommend this read for any young person who chooses silence over speech, who buries their nose in a book to avoid conversation, who seems to drift miles away while only inches from you. It is equal parts powerful and hopeful and the book I wish a 10-year-old me had had to read when I felt alone and lost and misunderstood.