Jennifer Chan is Not Alone

 

From the Publisher:

Sometimes middle school can make you feel like you're totally alone in the universe...but what if we aren't alone at all?
 
Thanks to her best friend, Reagan, Mallory Moss knows the rules of middle school. The most important one? You have to fit in to survive. But then Jennifer Chan moves in across the street, and that rule doesn’t seem to apply. Jennifer doesn’t care about the laws of middle school, or the laws of the universe. She believes in aliens—and she thinks she can find them.
 
Then Jennifer goes missing. Using clues from Jennifer’s journals, Mallory goes searching. But the closer she gets, the more Mallory has to confront why Jennifer might have run . . . and face the truth within herself.
 
Tae Keller lights up the sky with this insightful story about shifting friendships, right and wrong, and the power we all hold to influence and change one another. No one is alone.

My Thoughts:

Tae Keller won a Newberry Medal for When You Trap a Tiger. This next book is about bullying and at the core it is about those personal insecurities that lead people to be bullies, even people who feel like they are good people at the core. It brought back all of the middle school ghosts of trying to fit even if the trajectory up was littered with people who once were friends. 

This is a painful story about the cost of being different. This is a reminder that the middle school trauma follows us into adulthood. How many people invite their bullies to coffee so they can write this story and get the "why" answered? This is catharsis for adults and a necessary mirror for middle grades. 

From one middle school teacher to other middle school teachers, this story is why "withitness" is so important. We have to read between the lines, see behind our backs, hear everything, check odd behavior and be intolerant of mean, bullying behavior in writing, "jokes," social media, texts and other forms of communication. It is about protecting what makes each student rare, gifted and magical. 

Author: Tae Keller

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: April 26, 2022