Such a good middle grade
This book is heartwarming and endearing. Fantastic LGBTQ+ representation
There are great characters and fantastic writing

I really thought I was going to love this book. I think that it covers a lot of important topics and I love that it is aimed at children. However, I found that the main character seemed far too naive. They seemed to know nothing about anything and I found it very frustrating. The fact that he didn't know what pride was just seemed incredibly strange to me.

I have read a lot of books aimed at this age range and some get it so right. This book however makes the character seem so young for their age and oblivious to the world around them. I know that the writer has probably chosen this to teach the reader but there are ways to explain things to the reader without creating a character that knows absolutely nothing.

That being said, I think that this book still covers a lot and is very inclusive so it is not without its merits. I just personally feel that I won't be recommending the book to others as I know children of the target age would also find it frustrating.

I cannot describe how much I absolutely loved reading Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow. Benjamin Dean has done a fantastic job of writing this story and I cannot wait to read more books written by him in the future. I loved the way that Archie grew throughout this book. He had to face a big change in his life that he struggled to understand but it was so lovely to witness how he deals with that. I especially loved how the pride march was described as it really felt like I was there in the middle of it all. This is just such a wonderful celebration of LGBTQ lives and I think it will be a wonderful book for younger children to enjoy and learn more about what it means to have a gay parent. I will be recommending this book to everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and S&S for this ARC

I love this book, it was unfortunately our BoTM during lockdown, but it was a stunning book. I've had the privilege of meeting the author who is just as warm as this story

Trigger Warnings: Homophobia

I really liked the characters and the storyline. I felt that this portrayed a likely scenario that could happen and yet the author still injected so much fun into it. A thoroughly good read and one I happily added to my physical library.

A brilliant warm and fantastic story. Full of amazing characters and compelling events. I would recommend this to be ready by all students who just wish to get lost in a fantastic story!

A wonderful story about family, love and being proud. With a colourful array of characters, we learn about Archie's journey to learn about a family secret and his acceptance of that secret.
The book is almost split into 2 halves: At the start, Archie's family are falling apart and he doesn't know why. Then he learns that his father is gay, and he struggles to understand that his father is still the same person. Archie travels to London Pride with his friends - breaking a whole host of rules along the way - where he meets many different people who go on a mission to help him find his father there.
This was a joyful story and I'll be championing for it to be added to our school library.

high 4.5 stars

I don't know where the time has gone since I requested this, but I feel bad for it taking me so long to get to, as I read this whole book in a day! I just couldn't put it down. I wanted to know more about Alfie, his friends and the reasons behind his parents divorce (something that I know from personal experience isn't fun!)

This was 100% a book I wish I'd had access too as a teen, between the themes of family, found family, rights, pride, families changing and evolving, best friends, adventures, older mentors, lgbtq+ rep in all its glorious and amazing forms - urgh! It was just beautiful to see.

I wish the kids had realised how badly their plans could have gone before wandering on their little endevour, but we all think our plans are fool proof when we are that age - I'm just glad they found good people to help them! <3

I can gaurantee this will be one of the books in a few years, that I wish I could read again for the first time.

This is such a lovely, wholesome story! It's so brilliant to see LGBTQ+ stories for children. This story follows Archie, whose parents have recently split up. Near the beginning of the story he finds out the reason for their split is that his dad is gay. While Archie is accepting of gay people, obviously the split is difficult for him, and things become very awkward between him and his dad - neither of them feel particularly comfortable talking about it, and it drives a wedge between them. Eventually, Archie decides to go on a secret mission to London Pride with his two best friends, as he thinks Pride will hold the answers to repairing his relationship with his dad.

I really loved the story, and the relationships between all the family members. The scenes at Pride really captured the atmosphere, and I loved that there was representation from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum towards the end of the novel. This is a really wonderful, age-appropriate LGBTQ+ novel for children.

Trigger Warning: homophobia, panic attacks/anxiety

Middle-grade LGBTQ stories are rarer than YA and adult ones, but I immediately fell in love with Me, My Dad, and the End of the Rainbow by Benjamin Dean, a first-person story told from the perspective of twelve-year-old, mixed-race Archie Albright. Mild trigger warnings for homophobia apply, but these situations are handled in a way appropriate for middle-grade readers.

Archie lives in a small English town just outside of London. Until recently, he shared his home with his parents, but his father has now moved out following many months of fighting and Archie is struggling to come to terms with his new living arrangement. Thankfully, he has his two best friends, Seb and Bell, to rely on. After a disastrous parents’ evening at his school, Archie accidentally overhears his parents having yet another fight and learns that his father has realized he is gay.

Not sure how this new information will change his relationship with his dad, Archie finds himself increasingly confused and unhappy until he finds a flyer for London Pride in his dad’s car. Researching the event, he sees dozens of photos of happy, smiling faces and families. Convinced that the secret to repairing his relationship with his father lies at the parade, Archie recruits his two best friends and they hatch a plan to go on a real-life adventure to the big city and discover what Pride is all about.

This was such an upbeat and adorable story that I inhaled the entire thing in a little over twelve hours (including a full night’s sleep)! Archie’s narration is just so fun—even when he’s talking about feeling down—that he keeps you always wanting to turn the page and find out what happens next. Often I find that books with younger protagonists can come across as overly pretentious because kids don’t really speak that way, but Archie reminded me of my own similarly aged son. Yes, it was all a little bit predictable, but that never once felt like a problem thanks to the main characters who were engaging enough that it didn’t matter. There were a few awkwardly clunky bits of exposition where one of the kids would read a word or phrase from somewhere and not understand it, leading another to explain the term like a walking, talking Wikipedia entry, but this was entirely forgivable in a middle-grade novel and might well be useful for young readers unfamiliar with the LGBTQ community and its many and varied acronyms.

Me, My Dad, and the End of the Rainbow was a brilliant book that perfectly captured the buzz and vibrancy of a big city Pride celebration without letting it seem as if Pride is nothing more than an excuse to dress up in glitter and have a party. The importance of Pride as a movement is captured here both in a general sense and through the eyes of Archie’s family—and his dad, specifically. Reading Me, My Dad, and the End of the Rainbow made me realize how important it is that we get events like this back on our streets following covid19, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. After all, any book in which a hoard of fabulous drag queens is called upon to help save the day has to be worth your time, right?!

GeekMom received a copy of this book for review purposes.

The most joyfully anticipated book of the year. Brilliant story from Benjamin Dean - flawlessly written and unputdownable. I wish my 12 year old self had been able to read about Archie and his dad. This is not a story about being gay, or what that experience is like... It's a book about love, family, and about acceptance of people as human beings - cleverly illustrating that often kids are so much better at that than adults are. Ending with a celebration - Pride style! It should be a must read on the top of your TBR stack. Perfect for 8+ and for fans of Jacqueline Wilson, Cath Howe, Lisa Thompson, Elle McNicol.

I really loved this one! Great characters that really brought this fantastic story to life. It manages to deal with some quite complex issues, including sexuality, families and friendship without losing any of it's warmth and joyfulness. I certainly think that it's greatest strength is that very real heart-warming feel, I just loved every bit of it.

so Me,My Dad and the end of the rainbow oh wow what a beautiful, heartwarming and real emotional book this one is!
This is a middle grade novel that every child in school should be reading!!! So so important.

This is a story following Archie who just wants things to go back to the way they used to be with his mother and father and to be a family again...His mum and dad have split up but Archie knows Both of them are keeping a secret... so one day he finds out His father is Gay! Archie is confused at first and this is a huge revelation for him, so with the help of his two best friends Seb and Bell, all three of them go on an adventure to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community and along the way come across some amazing people just living their lives freely and proud in the world!!

Contemporary issues about sexuality, family and friendship.

This is rather sweet. It's a modern sort of theme, with questions that young people might wonder about or have experience with, and a protagonist (and his friends) who explore the genre for the reader with humour.

Archie's parents aren't living together. Things used to be good, now he's coping with them separated, hating each other, with a new sort of life. But if that wasn't hard enough, now there seems to be a secret they are keeping from him.

The reader is very likely to work out what is going on before Archie finds out. And even when he does, there's still an amount of naivete that will have in-the-know readers interested to see how he's going to try to reconcile his family issues, and those who are just as clueless intrigued as to what is going on and how he can fix things.

I was charmed, I must say, by a lot of this. Being a parent, and having a lot of empathy for Archie's, I liked seeing the 'behind the scenes' of Archie's mum and dad talking, seeing their perspectives of how to give their son some unexpected news.

Archie is part of a threesome that the reader can't help but warm to - the best friends trio of chalk and cheeses - a worrier and the smart one in charge.

Then there's the central premise when everyone heads to London, with the visual scenes of colour, of crowds, of more eccentric characters and, hopefully, a finale where Archie and his family manage to communicate, to remember their common ground and love for each other... will it all come together?

I've been deliberately vague to avoid spoilers. We have here a really sympathetic central character, though at times the worldy-wise reader will wonder what all the fuss is about. There are great friends around him, and a vibrant setting with a lot of quirkiness.

It's a feel-good story, that asks questions of the reader who doesn't already know the answers. It might inspire debate, research and thought. It feels contemporary and relevant, and introduces the themes in accessible and thoughtful ways.

One that parents and teachers might recommend to ages around 9-13.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

Really bloomin' lovely! This book filled me with so much hope and joy - very high up on my list of recommended Middle Grade reads. Can't wait to get sharing it with my students!

Fabulous book about a kid who discovers his dad is gay, and although he struggles a little, he realises there's a place for both of them in the rainbow - and at London Price

This celebration of LGBT+ identities is such a needed and important addition to the small but growing collection of LGBT children’s stories. It’s so full of heart, empathy, and joy, that while it took a while to get going, it kept me hooked and so excited to join the characters on their journey to London Pride.

When Archie’s parents can’t do anything but argue with each other, his home becomes a frosty and uncertain place to be. It’s all happened so fast, and he’s sure they are keeping something from him. When his dad comes out as gay, Archie isn’t sure what this means for his family. He knows his dad isn’t happy, and that people have lots of different opinions about what it means when someone is gay. While Archie navigates his own questions and worries about his dad, he also simply just wants his family to be happy again. When he discovers a crumpled flyer in his dad’s car, advertising London Pride, Archie and his friends hatch a plan to go to London and attend. Their mad adventure leads them to meet a range of colourful and kind LGBT+ people who help both Archie and his dad understand that being gay doesn’t really change anything, especially not how much they love each other as a family.

It’s such a heartwarming and honestly empathetic book. I’ve read so many books about the family members of LGBT+ people, where the story is all around how the family members’ change/realisation about their identity negatively impacts the MC until they eventually educate the MC and help them understand. All the labour is on the LGBT person, and their feelings are sidelined. I loved that this story was not like that at all! Archie recognised his own ignorance and unfair feelings, and wanted to learn, without judgement, because he loved his dad. His negative feelings were more around how is family felt broken because his parents were so unhappy, rather than how awful his life was because he had a gay dad, and this was refreshing. It shouldn’t be refreshing, but that just shows how important this book is - it’s a much-needed positive representation of a cishet kid doing everything he can to make his dad feel accepted and loved within his family.

Archie’s friends were also wonderful, going with him on his adventure to pride and becoming positive influences on their parents (friends of Archie’s dad). I also loved the teenage characters and their openness. It was great to see so much LGBT rep. Really, I just can’t stop gushing about this book. I’ve bought multiple copies for my school’s library. It’s the kind of positive and uplifting book that is so desperately needed. :)

I really enjoyed this.. why dont i read more MG?! Such a lovely story and it was nice to see a character learning about the lgbt community and being fully embraced on all sides

Title: Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow
By :Benjamin Dean
Publishers: Simon and Schuster Children's Books
Simon & Schuster Children's UK
Genre: Children's Fiction | LGBTQIA | Middle Grade
Pub Date :03 Mar 2021
Review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3648218035


There may be a lot of things that Archie Albright knows but right now he has no idea why his family is falling apart. His dad doesn't live at home anymore and and his parents are getting a divorce. Yet Archie doesn't understand why. It seems sudden and thought they definitely no longer seem to love each other he can not figure out why. He starts to feel a tension between him and his dad that was never there before. He has no idea what to do about it. Until one day he steels a ball of paper that his dad owns and he gets a sudden idea. Will his idea work and help him reconnect with his dad or is he about to cause a hole lot of trouble for everyone he loves?


It is obvious from the title and cover that the book deals with the LGBT+ community but what is not so obvious is that this book also deals with change. Change in a family structure and also in attitude. Mr Albright has to face some pretty discussing behavior when his marriage ends, people who he thought of as friends may not be real friends at all. There are also interactions with other members of the LGBT+ community and the exploration of found family. Of course there are less favorable themes such as lying, steeling and dissidence. I do worry that some children might think that going where you want is ok without permission. For that I will be deducting a star.


I found it slow and difficult to get into this book but once I did I just wanted to get to P Day as quickly as possible. I wanted to see what would happen and I have to say it was my favorite part of the book. I was disappointing that Mrs Albright would say things like she did and act like she did in front of Archie. I would have preferred if he was over hearing these things from phone conversations but unfortunately there are parents out there who act like this and worse in front of their children. I loved the new found family and the flash forward. It really made me want to be there.

It ended up being a really up beat book about family and celebrating your differences.

Wow! What a fantastic, heartwarming story of family and friendships that celebrates LGBTQ+ in such a beautiful way.
Archie and his best friends, Seb and Bell, embark on a mission to find answers to Archie’s newfound family situation at the end of the rainbow at London’s Pride festival. His dad has recently come out gay and Archie is trying to work it all out and is worried his dad has changed. But help is at hand in the form of his best friends and a whole host of colourful characters.
This is such a brilliant book celebrating diversity and copies will be taking pride of place in our school library.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Schuster for the e-arc.