Review: Calling Cobber
Calling Cobber by Sheri Sinykin Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacy Nockowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Early on in Sheri Sinykin’s middle grade novel, Calling Cobber , 11-year-old Jacob “Cobber” Stern’s English teacher asks him to compose a haiku about himself and his family history. Cobber writes: Me? I am nothing./No culture, no heritage./I am just Cobber . He is a boy adrift, without an anchor to steady him in his uncertain world. Cobber doesn’t know how to communicate with his emotionally distant, workaholic father since his mother’s death six years ago. He’s not sure if his friendship with BFF Boolkie Berman can survive now that Boolkie has “abandoned” him for Hebrew School and bar mitzvah studies. And he feels increasingly responsible for his great-grandfather, his Papa-Ben, who still lives on his own but is becoming more and more forgetful. All of this uncertainty leaves Cobber feeling grief-stricken, fearful, and defeated. Underpinning Cobber’s troubles is his contentious