Mavis Jukes

Two and a half to three stars. I read this book when I was ten, and it flew waaaaay over my head. Now, as an adult, I was curious to learn what I'd think. I wouldn't be able to relate, I guessed. And I wasn't, but not for the reasons I thought. Much is made in this book and also "I've Lost My Best Friend" by Megan Howard about the protagonists being in junior high school and how super exciting it is. I--what? I don't get the way the students are grouped, or the things they're looking forward to, especially in this book. I went to public middle school in the US, which is grades six, seven and eighth. High school is grades nine through twelve. Maybe junior high is an East Coast thing? I was born and raised in Seattle, lived here on the West Coast my whole life. I do remember a girl in a few of my classes kept insisting this was "(School Name) Junior High." Wrote it on all her in-school notebooks and papers and everything. She made it clear that she was trying to make our middle school cooler than it actually was. It was not a junior high, you weirdo. Part of it had to do with that she desperately wanted to be one of the popular girls, and instead just did this "too cool for school, I'm twelve going on twenty-five" thing It's stuff like that, that I associate with the phrase "junior high." Why would it be a reward to visit the local high school, as a junior high school student, as it was in this book? That really stumped me, especially as a kid and even now. What was the Classiest of Classes thing? My school didn't have those things. Nor were we able to design school borders. Was this school just overly permissive with a weird rewards system? Because we just went to school. Sometimes we competed with other district middle schools, and even regional ones, in choir competitions or band or orchestra and such. That was pretty much it.

A lot of this book actually made me laugh. The dialogue was snappy. I liked how much of it I remembered. That was nice. And this book is an excellent example of vivid writing that's from the POV from a confident, self-assured tween. It was refreshing to the point of being shocking, when compared to other books I'd read. I feel like tween books in the nineties had characters that acted like littler kids than they actually were, or were kind of smart-alecks who were trying to act like they were in high school already. Now that I think about it, that was accurate to my middle school too. I understood this book a lot more as an adult, and appreciated it. I thought the teachers' relationships to the kids were pretty laid-back, and was surprised at how comfortable they were with one another. The pregnancy symptoms River thinks her sister has, made me giggle a little. I get how she thinks that, but--it is not necessarily that. The way it was discussed for teens, especially in the textbook, was incredibly progressive for the nineties, and I loved how matter-of-fact the textbook was. Bravo. The kitten birth scene was gross. When I was ten, it didn't bother me. Our pug dog had just given birth to puppies at three in the morning, and my mom invited us to support the dog through it. My brothers and i got bored and played cards. My mom had been pregnant a few times with us, and was able to comfort the dog. I felt bad for awhile later for playing cards, but I understand that hey, I was a kid. Plus the dog was basically mine. I got all the cuddles and she slept in my bed up until a few weeks before her untimely death from an awful disease. Anyway, back to the book.

I have to say my favorite part was when Mr Elmo talked about Black History Month and the pilot, and saluted him. That got to me, and I was relieved that River spoke highly of the experience. I might hang onto this book. I finished it after having a weird day, and maybe the next time I read it, I will feel better. I'd definitely recommend this to my little cousins.… (mere)