Skip to main content

CHARACTER COUNTS: Forget Me Not

Image
By
Forget Me Not
By Ellie Terry
Feiwel and Friends, 2017. Fiction.

Calliope June has just moved for the tenth time. Her mom has broken up with another boyfriend and so they've packed up their bags, deflated Calli's air mattress bed, and moved to St. George, Utah. Calli has never lived somewhere long enough to make a best friend, and it doesn't help her that she has Tourette Syndrome so she sometimes makes faces or noises that she doesn't mean to. The kids at her new school make fun of her -- except for Jinsong, the student body president, who quickly befriends her and sees past her Tourette's.

I cannot say enough how much I love this sweet story of friendship and learning to accept yourself. The story is told using a mix of free verse and prose poetry which makes Calli's Tourette's feel very real and breaks a lot of misconceptions about Tourette Syndrome. Jinsong is great character and great friend, who's reluctance to defend his friend and risk his own popularity is something many kids will identify with. Calli definitely stands out, though, as a sweet, interesting, and thoughtful character that anyone should want to befriend. The fact that this novel is the debut of a Utah writer only makes it even better to me - read and share this book widely, you won't regret it.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The New Girl

By
The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Five Favorite Aunt and Uncle Books

By
  Aunt and Uncle Day I discovered a new holiday. Apparently, July 26th is National Aunt and Uncle Day! In order to celebrate this day, I am sharing my five favorite middle grade books that have stellar aunts and uncles. Now, due to a lot of various circumstances, these books have a lot of hard things (death of a parent, parental neglect, and one case of good parents sending their child off to visit an uncle during summer vacation). So, be aware that these titles not only showcase some amazing aunts and uncles, but they also open the door to talk about hard topics.  Closer to Nowhere  By Ellen Hopkins  Putnam’s Sons, 2020.  This book is actually told from two different points of view—Hannah and Cal’s; however, the two protagonists are cousins. Cal comes to live with Hannah’s family and Hannah’s mom—Cal’s aunt—becomes Cal’s support and champion. Cal’s mom died and his dad is in prison. Cal is in a family foster care situation and doesn’t feel like he belongs. Hann...
Post a Comment
Read more