Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: a Year Told Through Stuff

Marc Notes: Ginny starts out with ten items on her to-do list for seventh grade, but notes, cartoons, and other stuff reveal what seems like a thousand things that go wrong between September and June, both at school and at home.; Ages 8-12.; A Junior Library Guild selection. Publisher Marketing: Ginny has ten items on her big to-do list for seventh grade. None of them, however, include accidentally turning her hair pink. Or getting sent to detention for throwing frogs in class. Or losing the lead role in the ballet recital to her ex-best friend. Or the thousand other things that can go wrong between September and June. But it looks like it's shaping up to be that kind of a year! As readers follow Ginny throughout the story of her year, told entirely through her stuff--notes from classmates, school reports, emails, poems, receipts, and cartoons from her perpetually-in-trouble older brother Harry--a portrait emerges of a funny, loveable, thoughtful girl struggling to be herself...whoever that person turns out to be. Review Citations: Kirkus Review - Children 07/01/2007 pg. 667 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 07/30/2007 pg. 82 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) - *Starred Review School Library Journal 09/01/2007 pg. 198 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 10/01/2007 pg. 89 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Booklist 10/15/2007 pg. 48 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2008 pg. 150 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2009 pg. 873 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 1042 (EAN 9780689852817, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Holm, Jennifer L Jennifer L. Holm is the author of the Newbery Honor Book Our Only May Amelia and the contemporary young adult thriller, The Creek, as well as the other books of the Boston Jane trilogy: Boston Jane: An Adventure and Boston Jane: Wilderness Days. She lives with her husband and son and cat in the wilds of Maryland. Contributor Bio:  Castaldi, Elicia Award-winning illustrator and author Elicia Castaldi was born in Providence, Rhode Island and has loved making art since for as long as she can remember. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, she spent nearly a decade in New York City. She now splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Elicia's books include "Eighth Grade is Making Me Sick "and "Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf", both written by Jennifer L. Holm, and "Miss Polly has a Dolly". Elicia's artwork has been praised as having a "quirky profoundness," and she never goes a day without being inspired.