Drama

Product Information

Every so often I just want to gush thanks and praise at an author, and I am totally there with this one right now. Yesterday a parent came over to tell me how impressed she was by the book fair and that you did a fabulous job of selling the books to the children first. After I heard about Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant's story with Remnatns, I sort of gave up on a book like this existing in the near-future.

Publishers Weekly stated that Drama "sweetly captur[es]" the challenges that are associated with a middle school production. Raina also does a wonderful job at introducing middle school boys who are questioning their sexuality in an unbiased, nonjudgmental way. By having a visual representation of the challenges the characters face, readers not only develop a more personal understanding of LGBTQ experiences, but also gain a better sense of empathy for others in similar situations outside of the novel. My daughter has read the Babysitter Club books by Raina Telgemeier and Smile and I’ve flipped through them and thought they were fine for a 4th Grader.My nine-year-old niece read this after we both read "Smile" and she loved it but warned me that "Some people think it's gross because of something that happens, but I don't think it's gross because [I am not a bigot and have queer family members]. There is also high praise from The Gazette to Telgemeier for using the graphic novel style to present a more mature theme. There is drama on stage and to top it all off there is the school dance in there to make sure there was enough drama. Though my Googling was fairly random and unusual overall, it was neither terribly unusual nor random in that my Googling was centered on an acquaintance from my high school drama club circle.

Your words, like your reviews, bring books to life and give them a voice before the front cover is even turned. If you're going to read this book, I hope you rate it because you liked (or disliked) the story and not because it contains "the gay. So I thought I'd bring something easy that didn't require a lot of concentration since they play music in the gym and I normally can't read if I hear music with words, but there was just enough ambient noise for me to block it out.There were just enough events to support the character interactions (which are really what the book is about), but it never threatened to overcome them. A strong female protagonist who (in the end) learns that she doesn't need a boyfriend to be happy/complete.