Why am I passionate about this?
In That’s What Friends Do, the #MeToo experience that Sammie’s mom shares with Sammie is my story. I was thirteen. I never told anyone. Even as I started writing my novel, it didn’t occur to me to share with my husband, or my teenage children, my experience. But one evening, as the #MeToo movement was exploding in the media, I was sitting around a dinner table with several other couples. All of the women had had a #MeToo experience. Most of us were young teens when it happened. Shame and guilt had kept us silent for far too long. My novel – and the others on my list – are working to break through that silence.
Cathleen's book list on #MeToo for middle grade readers
Why did Cathleen love this book?
This lyrical novel-in-verse tells the story of fifth-grader, Tori, whose uncle does something bad to her on the couch in the basement of her house. The story begins immediately after the incident, which is described very obliquely, and beautifully captures Tori’s shock, shame, anger, and profound sense of brokenness. Adults who should listen to her and help her don’t always come through, and Tori’s shame also causes her to pull away from her closest friends. But slowly, with the help of her mom, her little sister, and her teacher, Tori begins to speak up. I thought Sonja Solter beautifully captured Tori’s grief, her retreat to silence and smallness, and her gradual, incremental healing process. I especially loved Tori’s relationship with her little sister and how it evolves.
1 author picked When You Know What I Know as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.
When you know what I know, you'll wish you didn't.
It's not the kind of thing you can talk about at school, or at the park, or anywhere, with a new friend or an old one, or even with your sister. (She's too little.)
But it's everywhere once you know, once you can't not know. In your face, under your eyelids. If you turn your back on it, there it is anyway.
One day after school, in the basement on the couch, Tori's uncle did something bad. Afterwards, Tori did the right thing, and told her mom. But even if…
- Coming soon!