Book Review: All’s Faire in Middle School

[osprey_archer]

I really liked Victoria Jamieson's Roller Girl, so of course when I saw she'd written a new graphic novel (All's Faire in Middle School), of course I had to read it. And I enjoyed it just as much if not more than Roller Girl! It would be hard to say which. I wasn't shouting at the heroine for questionable life choices at the end of this one, so it probably edges out ahead. 

Jamieson has a real talent for writing heroines who are genuinely quite flawed and make some horrible choices, but are still basically good people who are trying to be their best selves - only it's hard to tell what that is when you're twelve. 

Our heroine, Imogene, has grown up in the Renaissance Faire. Literally: her parents both work there, and she's been homeschooled all her life. Until now! This year, she is going to prove her knightly courage by... going to middle school! 

This is actually not the complete disaster that you might expect from the premise - she doesn't start spouting off "prithees" on her first day and instantly become the least popular kid in school - but it's also a hard transition. Imogene is used to being one of the few kids surrounded by a cast of generally kind and supportive grown-ups (and one of the things I really liked about the book is this cast: it's unusual to see child characters with so many supportive adults in their lives!), and it's weird for her to suddenly have all these other kids around - and to have to navigate which ones are genuinely good friend material, and which ones aren't even though they seem nice. When they feel like it. No one is a good friend if they're only nice when they feel like it. 

I also liked the complexity of the middle school social situation. There's one girl who turns out to be pretty bad news, but you can totally understand why Imogene doesn't realize that at first. The girl asks Imogene to sit with her at lunch on Imogene’s first day! Right as Imogene is beginning to wish she could sink into the linoleum, because she doesn’t know anyone in the cafeteria and there’s nowhere she could possibly sit! Of course Imogene loves her. 

And she's also lots of fun - when she’s feeling nice. And even when she’s feeling mean - well, Imogene is so relieved to have a place to sit at lunch that it’s easy not to worry about that too much, as long as she’s not the one in the crosshairs. 

And the mean girl has a friend who is nice, and is maybe beginning to reevaluate her friend choices now that she’s in middle school, and is realizing that her elementary school friends are kind of mean. (I like to imagine that as time passes, she and Imogene form their own little splinter group, and perhaps gather some other friends too.)

And then there's the dorky girl who also turns out to be a big Renaissance Faire fan - but might be sometimes-friend rather than best friend material for Imogene, because the Faire may be the only thing they have in common. 

I liked that there wasn't a clear binary contrast between Popular Mean Girls with no redeeming features and Dorky Girl who is actually a 100% perfect friend. The popular girls aren’t all mean; the dorky girl has her drawbacks too. It makes sense that Imogene has difficulty figuring out which friendships she wants to pursue, because all the candidates have pros and cons (and are quite aware Imogene has good and bad points, too!) - and they’re all still very young and still figuring out who they want to be. 

Also, one of Imogene's RenFaire mentors speaks fluent Shakespearian insult. That alone makes the book worth the price of admission.

Comments

[sovay]

Also, one of Imogene's RenFaire mentors speaks fluent Shakespearian insult. That alone makes the book worth the price of admission.

Examples?

[osprey_archer]

I've already taken the book back to the library, I'm afraid, so I can't give any.

[lilysea]

Thank you for these reviews! ^_^

I just bought both books as a result...

[osprey_archer]

Hooray! Always happy to point people to good authors.

[isis]

This sounds really fun. The transition from homeschooling to middle school sounds very realistic to me.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think so. Or rather, I never homeschooled so I can't speak directly to that part of it, but the middle school social situation rang true. So many people! All so complicated! How to navigate? It's very relatable.

[landofnowhere]

I've been eyeing this book for a while, and it sounds really charming, so I will have to pick it up sometime.

As a homeschool alumna who stayed homeschooled through all of high school, I'm a little resentful though that most fiction about homeschoolers focuses on the point when they start going to school. I mean, I understand it's a useful trope for storytelling reasons, and I'm very fond of some of the stories (Libby on Wednesday), but I'd be happy to see much more of other options. (Homeschoolers who stay homeschooled but still have to navigate issues with friendships, e.g. their friends have started going to school? Homeschoolers who have just stared homeschooling and need to adjust? Homeschoolers who have started taking community college classes and need to adjust to the social situations there?)

[osprey_archer]

I love Libby on Wednesday! I super wanted her Treehouse when I read that book. And her ginormous gently decaying mansion. It seemed dreadfully unfair to me that she had to stop homeschooling: clearly she was living the perfect life and it all had to be RUINED for the sake of "socialization."

I often think there's an element of boosterism to books about homeschooled students who start school - and novels about homeschoolers always seem to be about homeschoolers starting school - like it's propaganda for how important school is. Yes, there's always a difficult transition period, but by the end the former homeschooling student is always glad that they have had this challenging yet enriching experience!

There ought to be at least a few books about school-goers who quit school in favor of homeschooling and, after a difficult adjustment period, end up glad that they have had this challenging yet enriching experience. "I can have friends who aren't exactly my own age!" the former school-goer marvels. "It might have taken me years to broaden my social skills enough to realize that if I had remained in a mainstream school."

[landofnowhere]

like it's propaganda for how important school is.

Indeed. I did a quick google search for books about homeschoolers, and found some self-published stuff by homeschool parents that looked cringeworthily homeschool-boosterish, but you're right that the homeschooler-going-to-school stories tend to be school-boosterish in their own way.

(Incidentally, E. Nesbit did a story where the frame to the magical-adventure part is essentialy "homeschooler goes to school, has to adjust". I find the protagonist entirely charming -- he's grown up on the Edwardian equivalent of New Age books, so he knows all about Atlantis and how Bacon really wrote Shakespeare and that sort of thing -- but it's interesting how it shows the difference in what was expected in terms of "adjusting to school". In particular, being able to fight back physically against bullies was considered an essential social skill for boys then.)

There ought to be at least a few books about school-goers who quit school in favor of homeschooling

The only one I know of is Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan. In that one the main character has already been kicked out of every school in Rhode Island -- which is apparently the only acceptable excuse for homeschooling in children's literature.

I haven't read it -- though I liked a bunch of Tolan's other books when I was around 13. In particular she wrote Welcome to the Ark, which hit all the gifted-kid wish-fulfillment buttons for me then, but was also super-anti-psychiatry and medication in a way that I now think was not helpful. Anyhow, Surviving the Applewhites came out when I was in my older teens, but I was too busy to read it at the time, and now I'm not sure how much I want to read anything by Tolan.

[osprey_archer]

I read Welcome to the Ark! In fact I reread it quite a few times, because it hit my youthful wish-fulfillment buttons, although by the later readings I was beginning to have my doubts about this whole "the world would be a better place if only gifted children could combine their powers a la Captain Planet and channel the violent impulses of crowds!"

I mean really, you'd only need one bad apple who insists on channeling violence towards people rather than away to make this all go pear-shaped and turn into some sort of terrifying telepathic dictatorship. Doug's already halfway there!