Jessica Ferranti's Reviews > The Insiders

I read a lot of middle grade novels as an upper elementary teacher and as a parent of a tween and teen, and while I think the subject matter here and the characters are so important to have represented (not just for the kids who are LGBTQ, but to help all kids to try to understand others’ perspectives), this book fell flat for me. The characters often talked like little adults when they were having important conversations, and it reminded me constantly of trying to teach SEL lessons and strategies to my kids only to have them say, “but no one actually talks like that” or “but it (the mean behavior) doesn’t really happen as obviously as that” or “it never works out as perfectly as that.” I still think there is an audience for it because if we never model how to solve conflicts, they really never will learn to talk like that and work things out maturely, but those issues still made the book less enjoyable to me. Also this book is the poster child for the lesson that if the main characters would just talk to a trusted adult (the key word here being trusted), the problems would have been solved near the beginning of the book.