#101: Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout
Okay, first things first: this title is hella misleading. Claudia doesn’t drop out of middle school — she’s sent back to repeat seventh grade because she isn’t mastering any of the content in her eighth-grade classes. As a teacher, I had some ~feelings~ about this book.
Nowadays, we’d never hold a kid back a full grade. They’d be put in remedial classes, they’d have supported study halls, they’d get differentiated assignments based on ability (or disability), they might go to an extra period of a math lab or a writing lab. Long story short, they’d get support.
Poor Claudia. At first she realizes that some things about being a seventh-grader are nice: she’s actually doing well in her classes, all the other kids think she’s cool and treat her like a celebrity, etc. But there are negatives that outweigh the positives: she’s separated from her best friends and not even allowed to attend their Halloween dance, because it’s only for eighth-graders. Ouch. Thing is, to my mind, the social learning and development of school are as or more important as the academic portion. Come on, Stoneybrook!
Luckily, at the same time Claudia’s in a prestigious college art class with an accomplished artist named Serena McKay. She feels totally in her element, gets a ton of positive feedback, and even wins first prize in the end-of-class art show! (Duh.) More importantly, when she confides in Serena McKay about her struggles, the artist tells Claud that she too was held back - twice - but she graduated and now has a great career. She reaffirms her belief in Claud’s ability as an artist and basically tells her “it gets better.”
So… in time-loop Stoneybrook Claud’s now back in seventh grade (which is weird because she’s definitely gone to eighth-grade Halloween dances in earlier books, but okay). This’ll be interesting.
