Teen Tuesday: Light Enough to Float by Lauren Seal

                                     

Image: Penguin Random House

Light Enough to Float by Lauren Seal. 354 p. Rocky Pond Books/ Penguin Young Readers, October, 2024. 

Teen Tuesday features Light Enough to Float by Lauren Seal. Fourteen-year-old Evie is dying, though she is unaware, as are her parents, until they are not. She finds herself admitted to an in-patient treatment facility for her eating disorder, and she wasn't able to say goodbye to her sister, her best friend, or her beloved dog. 

This searing verse novel brutally depicts the hold that anorexics have, that prevents them from seeing themselves realistically. Evie hears voices that tell her she is fat, that she is a burden to her family, that she is unworthy. In treatment, she is weighed daily and is forced to eat. She wants to crawl out of her skin. But, she is also forced to attend group therapy sessions along with one-on-one sessions with a skilled therapist. 

This is a worthy addition to any middle and high school library and stands along side John Schu's Louder Than Hunger. Both are important novels for young people. 

Teen Tuesday: Louder Than Hunger by John Schu

Image: Candlewick Press

Louder Than Hunger by John Schu. 528 p. Candlewick Press, March, 2024. 9781536234206. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Happy Tuesday! Today is the final day of the school year and the heat wave is settling in. Best bet is to stay inside and read! Teen Tuesday features Louder Than Hunger by John Schu.

Jake is a lonely, miserable eighth grader. He has been relentlessly bullied by his peers for years and his only friend is his beloved grandmother and an angel he sometimes talks to. Jake's tormentors are not just classmates though. He has a voice inside his head that tells him he's not good enough, and it's getting loud and scary. He finds comfort in volunteering at a nursing home and it is one of his favorite patients who notices Jake's weight loss. She alerts Jakes parents and he is admitted to a residential treatment facility. He definitely does not want to be there following a schedule, getting weighed daily and, ugh, eating. He is resistant to treatment, but makes some friends. 

This verse novel is Jake's journal. It's a compelling, heartbreaking, yet hopeful read. The book is based on the author's own struggles with being bullied, and suffering from OCD and disordered eating. Back matter contains an author's note with organizations that can help. I started out reading Jake's story with my ears and the performance was fine, but I realized that there was much I was missing (line breaks, angry scribbles and such) by not reading it with my eyes, so I switched. This book helped me get out of my reading slump. Highly recommended.

Middle Grade Monday: A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner

Image: Simon & Schuster

A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner. 368 p. Aladdin/ Simon & Schuster, May, 2023. 9781665905152. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Sorry for this late posting! Middle Grade Monday features A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner. This heartbreaking first-person narrative is difficult to classify. It's notebook design implies a journal, but it's filled with disjointed free verse and sketches depicting Will's fragile mental health since fourth grade, when a cruel classmate fat-shamed him. He withdraws, and tries to make himself invisible by dressing in the baggiest of clothing and, eventually suffers from disordered eating. This honest, unflinching portrayal of what it's like to live as a fat kid in a world that values thinness will make readers reflect on how they might treat others. It's a powerful gut-punch. Highly recommended.

Middle Grade Monday: Smaller Sister by Maggie Edkins Willis

Image: Macmillan

Smaller Sister by Maggie Edkins Willis. 320 p. Roaring Brook Press/ Macmillan, June, 2022. 9781250767424. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Happy Monday! We are just about halfway through August, and you know what that means! I saw a meme somewhere that stated for teachers, August is Sunday. Haha, so true. My mind is already back in school. I still plan on filling each day I have left though. What kind of fun do you have planned?

Middle Grade Monday features Smaller Sister by Maggie Edkins Willis. Olivia is only 20 months older than her little sister, Lucy. The two are very close even though they are opposites. All this changes when Livy starts middle school. Suddenly, she's moody and secretive and losing a lot of weight. Eventually, Lucy's parents realize that Livy has an eating disorder. Lucy gets lost in the shuffle, counted on to be reliable and to make good choices. 

This semi-autobiographical graphic novel is the author's debut. The art style is appealing. The sisters' relationship is authentic. An author's note at the end includes resources for further reading. Fans of Raina Telgemeier will enjoy this heartfelt story. I'm happy to add it to my school library collection.

Butter by Erin Jade Lange

296 p. Bloomsbury USA, September, 2012. 9781599907802. (Purchased)

Butter, is the morbidly obese, sixteen-year-old narrator of this painful, yet riveting debut novel. The reader not only learns quite quickly that he tips the scales at over 400 pounds, but also the humiliating way he earned his moniker. My heart broke for Butter as he matter-of-factly recounts his school day from parking his BMW in the Handicapped spot, through the special desks and the solitary bench seat in the cafeteria, through tension-fraught meals with an indulging mother and distant father. 

Butter's voice is compelling - at turns desolate and snarky, brave and frightfully alone. He's not completely sympathetic, he lies to the people who reach out to him, a teacher, his diabetes doctor, his mother, his friend from fat camp. He's also lying to Anna, the hot, popular girl who has unwittingly befriended his online persona.  

I picked this up on a date night at my local Barnes and Noble. On date nights, I head to the Children's/ YA section and the hub heads to the mystery section. We each grab a pile of books and head to the café where, the first one there snags a table, some lattés and a calor-ific snack to share while we sift through our pile to decide what will be bought. On this particular night, the café was quite crowded. I snagged the last table, which was around the corner and had only one chair. I sat down, texted the hub to say I had a table and to take his time, plucked Butter off the pile and started reading. It was so-o busy that I didn't get on line to grab a drink and snacks. 

A while later, I realized that I hadn't heard from hub, checked my phone, texted him again, saw an empty chair, snagged it for him to sit in, and got back to my reading. Still later, tore myself away, looked around through the blur and realized that it was totally unlike him not to text a reply, so I called and got voice mail. Turns out, he left his phone at home. He had come to the café, bought two coffees, looked around, DIDN'T SEE ME and wandered around the store looking for me. This is the man who looks in the fridge and can't find the butter sitting right in front of him.

Anyway, had I not been totally sucked in, I would've realized much sooner that our wires were crossed. As it was, he returned to the mystery section and drank both coffees. Though I was grumbly over not having coffee and a snack, I do believe I was more grumbling over having to interrupt my reading to look for him. The following day, I had an all-day event to drive to and attend, so my reading was done with my ears to and fro in the car. When I finally returned to it a day later, it was with the rabid curiosity of one engaged in savage gossip. Really. I felt like a voyeur.

And I felt guilty about my interest. Was it prurient? Was he actually going to go through with it? Would everyone who viewed the web page actually watch on New Year's Eve? Would no one alert a responsible adult? No one comes off clean here, including the reader. This is raw and real. I would love to have a group of eighth graders (it's a bit mature for most middle school readers) read and discuss it. 

Click here to view the trailer and stay to check out other pages on the author's web site.

Others have reviewed this more eloquently than I:
Stacked
Literary Meanderings
Novel Thoughts
The Write Path