Thanks to the @kidlitexchange network and Simon and Schuster for the review copy of this book - all
opinions are my own. The Class by Frances O’Roark Dowell releases on October 8, 2019, and
you’ll definitely want to get your own copy then!
The Class is told by twenty different
characters, all classmates in Mrs. Herrera’s class. Ellie is an aspiring author
who needs an idea for her next book, so she starts taking notes about her
classmates. She sees a student who used to be a goody-goody starting to turn
bad. She sees boys labeled as “jocks” showing more depth and emotion than she
would have expected. She watches everyone to see how they interact and what
their relationships are like, because Ellie is struggling to find friends
herself. When some of Mrs. Herrera’s special things go missing, all of the
students have their suspicions of who took what, but all these students also
have their own reasons why they might be the thief.
Because of the unique way of storytelling,
the reader doesn’t get any foreshadowing, and can’t put all the pieces of the
mystery together until the book is finished. Each character has a distinct
voice that will make the reader think of students in their own classes - I know
it did for me! I can’t stress the positivity of this enough - it makes you see
things from other people’s points of view, including how and why they act the
way they do. I think this is so important in building empathy, especially in a
school setting when it’s so easy to dismiss others as “weird”, “loud”, “good”,
or “bad”. I’m going to recommend this as a book club pick for the 6th and 7th
graders at my school - or maybe even share as a group read-aloud. It’s very
powerful and important, while still being an enjoyable book kids of all ages
will want to read.
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