Girl of the Year 2017: Time for Change

Published 2017, author Varian Johnson,  book design by Angela Jun, cover photo by Kenneth P. Vail.

Plot

Gabby has got a lot going on. Sharing sixth grade ambassador duties with Aaliyah while navigating a new friendship with her, maintaining her friendship with Teagan despite being in a different school, preparing to start dancing en pointe (gradually and under the watchful eye of her ballet instructor, not dancing leads en pointe, Jesse), and rehearsing for a poetry slam. At first she seems to balancing things okay, but soon she’s stretched too thin. She doesn’t notice at first, and wonders why Teagan seems distant. It takes her a bit to connect the dots there (Teagan is feeling left out of Gabby’s life, especially with Gabby and Aaliyah’s new friendship, plus Teagan later reveals she hasn’t made any friends at her new school).

What Gabby does realize pretty quickly is that she’s not as excited about ballet as she used to be. She wonders if she should continue it when the passion seems to be gone. Although Gabby knows she should talk to her mother about it, she can’t bring herself too, because she knows how much her mom loves that Gabby does ballet. She even told Gabby’s ballet instructor that she’d been looking forward to the day when Gabby would get her first pointe shoes the day she’s found out she was pregnant with a girl. Gabby doesn’t want to disappoint her mom.

But she’s disappointing other people instead. She has trouble with her poetry, and neglects the Halloween costumes she and Teagan had planned (they always make elaborate costumes). She doesn’t focus enough on ballet, either, and is only able to pull off ambassador duties with Aaliyah’s help—and manages to accidentally insult her new friend in the process. She barely has time to study for school. Finally, Gabby talks to her mom. Much to Gabby’s relief, her mom understands, having once dreamed of being a Rockette, and even getting invited to join afternoon auditioning,  it ultimately turning it down to pursue a different dream (managing her theater). Gabby talks with her ballet instructor, who understands.

The harder part is making up with Teagan and Aaliyah, but Gabby bites the bullet and works things out. With her mind free from guilt and her focus not spread so thin, Gabby is able to get her act together for the poetry slam. She performs a duet with Teagan and a solo act. Her team dos well enough to win! The book closes with Gabby looking forward to the next round of competition, and to navigating her way through whatever other passion she and dreams she may discover.


Misc

For Elizabeth, Adrienne, Savannah, and Sydney. Special thanks also given to Martha Chapman, Leana Barbosa, and Sofia Snow.

I’m old. Red describes The Fresh Prince as an old TV show. I remember when it was airing. In West Philadelphia born and raised, on a playground was where I spent most of my days...

An early draft of Gabby’s solo poem describes a caterpillar metaphorically as a worm, but her teammates say it’s distracting since caterpillars aren’t worms, and she changes it to work better. I also found distracting that she described a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, but that’s moths. A butterfly would come out of a chrysalis.

Teagan tells Gabby that octopi and octopuses are both acceptable plurals of octopus, as is octopodes. The second two are better, because octopi indicates that octopus is Latin when it’s actually Greek-different plural rules apply (the plural of chrysalis, by the way, is chrysalides).

Red confirms in his solo poem that his mother is a single mom, but no big deal is made of it, which is probably nice for children of single parents to read. ( He never mentions his father.) His poem is a tribute to his mom. He also says she’s a captain in the Army, so she must have joined recently, as that’s the rank a doctor new to the Army would tend to have (a bachelors degree usually enters as a second lieutenant/O-1, advanced degrees as captain/O-3). He scores 9.8 out of 10 for his poem,which is the highest score that the poetry slam has ever given.