I am a super toad for saying that about Addie on the Inside. I'm not an author. I'm not even all that bright. I certainly couldn't create something 1/2 as good as this book. And just saying that, "A great effort!" sounds so pompous. But I can't think of anything else to say that is right. I know what James Howe was trying to do with this book. It's a coming-of-age tale. A middle school girl who is naturally uncomfortable in her own, changing skin, putting up with the usual, horrible stuff that middle school is made of: mean girls, breaking up with boyfriends, teachers who don't understand, teachers who do, that kind of thing that makes everyone want to get out of middle school, and once out, so glad they are. It's also the story of a girl who knows about injustice in the world and is brave enough to speak out against it. Or not speak, as she does on The Day of Silence, that she and the other kids in the Gay-Straight Alliance in her school have organized on their campus. But it just is a little too over the top. I think that Planet Middle School, while it doesn't has as big of an agenda as AOTI, does it better. Addie's story of her seventh grade year is just so filled with so much loss and sadness and misery that it is just too much. I mean, come on, does that cat REALLY have to die? And here's a tip...if you don't want your cat to get hit by a car...well don't let them outside. When are people going to learn that.
So yeah, that's what I think...a great effort, that just went a little awry.
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