Tag: Beth Vrabel

Posted in Fiction, Fiction, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Tween Reads

Reckless Club “remixes The Breakfast Club for the Instagram generation”

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Reckless Club, by Beth Vrabel, (Oct. 2018, Running Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9780762490400

Ages 9-13

I had to use Kirkus’ line in that opening, because how more perfect can one describe a book? Beth Vrabel, one of my favorite middle grade authors, reaches back into one of the movies that defined my generation and brought it back, with a few nips and tucks, to inspire a new generation. We take one group: a Nobody (Jason), a Drama Queen (Lilith), a Flirt (Wes), an Athlete (Ally, also known as “Sports Barbie”), and a rebel (Rex) all come together at a retirement home one day in the late summer. Each has done something so wrong in their last year of middle school that they’ve got to spend the last Saturday before high school here, helping elderly patients and their principal’s sister, who oversees the home. Each teen is paired with an elder, and their personalities quickly emerge, as does a mystery: is one of the nurse’s stealing from the patients?

The book has wonderful callouts to The Breakfast Club, meaning I’ll get to booktalk this to some of my parents, too. We Gen Xers never get tired of ’80s nostalgia! But the story is so much more than that. Beth Vrabel has the dual gifts of dialogue and character development, giving readers a voraciously readable story that delves into LGBTQ+, self-esteem and acceptance, and race matters.

I love Beth Vrabel’s books. I feel good at the end of a Beth Vrabel story, and I feel like people can and still want to make a difference when I read a Beth Vrabel story. She tells realistic stories about kids we could see in our classrooms, our libraries, and at our dinner tables every day, and provides insights that we may not even realize we’re overlooking. That handsome class president with the dimples may not have it as easy as you think. The drama queen that throws a hissy fit may have hit her last straw with an awful teacher. That star athlete may have something really unhealthy pushing her to excel. It reminds us, as adults, as well as middle graders and tweens, that everyone has something going on under the surface. A final note, a la the Breakfast Club, sums up the group’s experiences of the day, and we can only hope that The Reckless Club has another adventure in store for us soon.

Visit Beth Vrabel’s website for study guides, news about her other books, and info about school visits.

Posted in Fiction, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Tween Reads

Beth Vrabel’s newest: Bringing Me Back

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Bringing Me Back, by Beth Vrabel, (Feb. 2018, Sky Pony Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9781510725270

Recommended for readers 8-12

Seventh-grader Noah is having a bad year. His mother was arrested on a DUI and is serving a six-month sentence in prison; he lashed out on the football field, getting his school’s football program shut down. To say he’s persona non grata at school is putting it likely. Jeff, his mother’s boyfriend, has taken him in while Noah’s mom serves her sentence, and is trying to reach out to Noah, but Noah just sees himself as yet another burden on everyone. He’s taunted and bullied at school; even his former best friend, Landon, has joined the crowd in leaving garbage in his locker and making snide remarks during class, in the halls, wherever they see an opportunity.

And then, the bear shows up. Not much older than a cub, Noah notices the bear wandering around near the school. The school begins a fundraiser to bring back the football team, dumping buckets of Gatorade on themselves and donating money to the cause, and the bear gets her head caught in a bucket. Noah has a cause: he wants to save the bear. He’ll risk even more bullying and ridicule to do it, because now it’s him against the entire school, desperate to bring back that football team. Thankfully, he’s got a friend or two on his side. Noah’s desire to save the bear gives him a reason to keep going; the bear is bringing him back from the brink.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m a Beth Vrabel fangirl. She knows how to write for tweens. She tackles bullying, addiction, dysfunctional families, and social justice in Bringing Me Back, and makes it all flow seamlessly. Kids can empathize with all of the kids in this story: kids who live in areas where school sports are just as important as schoolwork; kids living with a single parent or stepparent; kids being bullied; kids who need a reason to keep going. She subtly addresses teacher bullying and the frustration of an education system that appears to be dialing it in to some students – what do you do when you’ve grown beyond your school? Bringing Me Back is a solid addition to realistic fiction shelves.

Posted in Fiction, Middle Grade, Middle School, Realistic Fiction, Tween Reads

Blind Guide to Normal brings back old friends!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

blind-guideA Blind Guide to Normal, by Beth Vrabel, (Oct. 2016, Sky Pony Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9781510702288

Recommended for ages 8-12

Taking place in Beth Vrabel’s Blind Guide universe, readers get to hang out with Ryder, also known as Richie Raymond, in Beth Vrabel’s A Blind Guide to Normal. Ryder is leaving Addison, the school for the blind we were introduced to in A Blind Guide to Stinkville, to head to “normal” school for eighth grade. The thing is, at Addison, Richie was the Big Man on Campus. With his jokes about his prosthetic eye and ability to find a witty comeback for every situation, he was the King of the Hill at Addison. In a mainstream school, it’s starting all over again – and to add to the chaos, he and his mom are moving in with his grandfather while his dad is off studying buffalo. Gramps has a very strange sense of humor, and his cat, General MacCathur, can’t stand him. On his first day of school, Ryder finds himself enrolled in a Quilting class (thanks, Grandpa!), making his bio teacher pass out, and putting himself at odds with the town hero, Max. Forget about fitting in – can Ryder get through the school year as the school punchline? He’ll need some help from his best friend Alice and, unbelievably enough, Gramps, to find out.

Less of a sequel and more of a companion to Blind Guide to Stinkville, Blind Guide to Normal is every bit as great to read as any Beth Vrabel book. Yes, I’m a Vrabel fangirl, and with good reason: she creates characters that I love. They tend to have a sarcastically upbeat outlook, which I can appreciate, and so do many of the kids I talk to in a given day. Her villain here isn’t even a villain, it’s just someone who Max starts off on the wrong foot with, and Max’s gift to see himself descending into car wreck territory but not being able to stop it is so refreshingly normal – how many times have you just not been able to stop talking when you know you’re just making things worse? – that you’ll laugh with embarrassed relief that you’re not alone. I was happy to see Alice again; her FaceTime conversations with Ryder provide a nice, familiar anchor for both Ryder and us readers. His relationship with his grandfather is a great subplot that I hope reaches kids who just don’t get their own grandparents, who they may see as weird or old-fashioned.

I hope Beth Vrabel finds more ways to bring us back to this group of friends. There’s a lot of great diversity in kid lit these days, and Vrabel’s ability to address disability with the suppressed emotion that spills over into a Don Rickles-like wit adds a spark to the expanding dialogue. Get this one and give it to your Blind Guide to Stinkville readers, sure, but also hand this one to your Wimpy Kid readers and tell them that Ryder and Greg would, in the ultimate literary multiverse, probably get along just fine.

 

Posted in Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Middle Grade, Middle School, Puberty, Realistic Fiction, Tween Reads

The Dorks are back! Pack of Dorks goes to Camp!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

camp dorkPack of Dorks: Camp Dork, by Beth Vrabel (May 2016, Sky Pony Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9781634501811

Recommended for ages 8-12

Lucy and her friends are back in the sequel to Pack of Dorks! The school year is done, and Lucy and her pack are headed to camp: Camp Paleo, where the group gets to live like cavemen for the next week. Because Sheldon thought it would be a cool idea. Sam backs out at the last minute to go to a gymnastics training camp, but Lucy’s grandma comes along for the summer, working as a lunch lady at the techy camp next door. Camp Paleo is decidedly not techy. The campers dig for fossils, learn archery, and have really, really cold, showers with bugs for company. Mr. Bosserman, the camp leader, is a grumpy old man, and Lucy feels her pack falling apart as the week progresses. Lucy’s got to look at some of her own choices and own up to things she’s said and done before she finds herself on the outs for good.

Camp Dork is a solid sequel to Pack of Dorks, which was brilliant in its depiction of a group of tweens coming together to embrace the things that made them unique. They owned their Dork label at school, but sometimes, you don’t want to be a label: you want to be a person, and you don’t want to be fettered by a word that supposedly describes all that you are. It’s something Lucy has to learn, and it’s something that readers are learning, right along with her. Camp Dork explores how people – especially tweens, but even adults – are perceived by different people, at different times, in different situations.

Camp Dork is a great summer read for tweens who are at the same point in their lives: discovering who they are, cultivating different interests and new friends, and maybe, fighting a little bit of change in their lives. If you loved Pack of Dorks, don’t miss Camp Dork. If you didn’t read Pack of Dorks, no worries – there’s enough exposition in Camp Dork to catch you up without you feeling lost.

I love the way Beth Vrabel writes. The dialogue just flows, and it’s at once loaded with inner frustration, wit and sarcasm, and honesty. I just saw on her website that another of her books that I really enjoyed, Blind Guide to Stinkville, has a sequel coming out this Fall, so I’ll be all over it.

There’s a really good librarian-created discussion guide to Pack of Dorks on Beth Vrabel’s website, which makes me feel like I need to start coming up with these things for all the books I read.

Posted in Fiction, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Tween Reads, Uncategorized

A Blind Guide to Stinkville is a must-read!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

61608104724460LA Blind Guide to Stinkville, by Beth Vrabel (October 2015, Sky Pony Press), $16.99, ISBN: 9781634501576

Recommended for ages 8-12

Twelve year-old Alice’s family has moved her from Seattle, across the country, to Stinkville – that is, Sinkville, South Carolina. It’s a paper mill town, her dad’s the new paper mill manager, and he seems to be the only one settling into their new life. Her mother is depressed, her brother is angry, and Alice sticks out like a sore thumb. Alice is an albino who needs to slather on the sunblock and wear hats so her sensitive skin doesn’t burn, and she’s legally blind – but she’ll be the first to tell you that she’s not that blind.  She can see, but things have to be really close for her to see them.

Alice’s parents start talking about sending her to a school for the blind when school starts in the Fall, and Alice is furious – she’s always been in public school! She’s determined to start doing things for herself, whether it’s finding her way to the library or doing the laundry at home. She even enters the Sinkville essay contest and decides to tell the stories of some of the locals she’s met; and that’s when she learns that Stinkville may not stink so much after all.

This is a little book that tackles some pretty big issues: the Civil Rights movement, depression, special needs, for starters. Told in the first person from Alice’s perspective, A Blind Guide to Stinkville tells the story of a family and a town with humor and sensitivity. Alice is a normal tween: she wants to fit in, but she’s got something that makes her stand out. She wants to be independent, and her family drives her nuts. Most of all, she’s a new kid in a new town and she missed her friends – her best friend, who is moving forward with her life. It’s a lot for any kid to handle, and Alice’s sense of humor is her best defense – that, and her determination to advocate for herself.

Importantly, for me at least, it also provides a glimpse into parental depression and the effect it has on the rest of the family, and how the fight to “get better” is not that easy. Alice’s mom has good days, then a bad day will hit. It happens, and Alice’s brother James doesn’t always understand. It’s a realistic portrayal of the helplessness felt by parent and child, and there are no answers, just getting through as best as possible while sticking together as a family unit.

Readers will appreciate this book for its good story and likable characters.  Parents and educators will appreciate how it promotes deeper understanding of different special needs – and how a kid is a kid is a kid at heart, really – and the subplot telling the story of the Civil Rights movement in the South. Great for discussion groups.

Beth Vrabel is the author of the 2015 Cybils-nominated book, Pack of Dorks, also from Sky Pony. The sequel, Camp Dork, will be coming in May 2016. Her author website offers a study guide for Pack of Dorks, an FAQ, and links to her blog and published writing.