Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Fetching

Stewart, K. (2011). Fetching. New York: Disney/Hyperion. Eighth grader Olivia has put up with more than her fair share of teasing from Queen Bee Brynne Shawnson. The popular girl and her followers play various pranks on Olivia, even barking like dogs when she climbs on the bus. Olivia lives with her grandmother while her father works in another town, and her grandmother is a dog trainer who also shares her home with several canines. It occurs to Olivia that her classmates could easily be categorized as one of the seven standard breeds of dogs, and that possibly the training used on dogs could be used successfully on them. Consequently, Olivia shares her brainstorm with her friends, all members of the extracurricular Bored Game Club, a group that is decidedly not among the top breeds at their school. The challenge is on, and Olivia persuades her friends to reward good behavior with candy, gum, even office supplies. Slowly, the balance of power shifts, and the top dog is no longer the top dog. As Olivia's theory about human behavior is proved true and all her wishes seem to be coming to fruition, guilt plagues her, and she wonders if there is an insecure person hidden deep inside even the most popular students in school. Could she possibly have more things in common with Brynne than she might have imagined? This hilarious story about middle school politics also contains several kernels of wisdom for navigating the well-worn path to popularity.

Favorite Lines: "I wonder how she feels about carrying her own little personal crazy gene. If she worries about it rising up and taking over too--if it's not starting to already. I imagine us old and graying together, in some white-walled institution somewhere, weaving brightly colored pot holders even though neither one of us is allowed near kitchen knives or a hot stove" (p. 210).

"There's something incredibly sad about it all--the sense of desperation under all those snacks laid out on the table, the tiny room--that keeps me from just standing up and walking away. So I grab some M&M's and let her turn up the volume on the TV, and we both watch like we completely understand Spanish. But all I'm understanding is that everything feels broken and I don't know how to piece it back together" (p. 234).

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