Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone. 320 p. G. P. Putnam's Sons/ Penguin Random House, July, 2020.
Happy Monday TMS Readers! I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful autumn weekend we just had!
Middle Grade Monday features Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone. School Dress Codes, while well-intentioned can be tricky - open to interpretation, inconsistently enforced or worse, certain students can become targets. When eighth grader Molly and her friend were wearing the exact same outfit and the vice-principal cited only her friend, Molly knew the dress code was unfair. When another friend, Olivia was cited for wearing a tank top, the vice-prinicipal did not want to hear that she removed her sweatshirt to cover a period stain. She cancelled the eighth grade trip, as she had threatened to do. Now the entire eighth grade hates Olivia. Molly knows she has to do something. But what? She starts a podcast and interviews girls who have been unfairly singled out. At first, girls were reluctant to speak, but then some former students even returned from high school to talk about how sexist and unfair the dress code was. But what next? Molly's desire for social justice is awakened and she's going to find a way to change the Dress Code.
Firestone portrays middle school dynamics perfectly in this sharp, slyly hilarious first-person narrative. Molly is so-o relatable and persistent. She just might inspire some readers to act toward social justice in ways large and small.
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