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| Image: Little Bee Books |
Middle Grade Monday features Jelly by Jo Cotterill. Twelve-year-old Angelica, Jelly for short, does spot-on impressions of her teachers and is quick with a joke. She does so both to keep her classmates laughing; but also to beat them to the punch. Jelly is overweight. When classmates do make hurtful comments about her weight, she's the first to laugh it off. She lives with her single mom who tends to have boyfriends who don't treat her very well. Jelly is also a poet and write poems in her journal, which she shares with no one.
This first-person narrative is engaging. Jelly is frank and quite funny. Her poems reveal her sensitive side. Readers will root for Jelly as she wrestles with self-confidence and her body image.
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