Halfway Normal

Halfway Normal
Everything I Know About You

Juvenile fiction
"The second I stepped into the room, somebody screamed.
I turned to look behind me--for a rock star, or a grizzley bear,
or the Loch Ness Monster. But no one was following.
The scream was for me."
When Norah, narrator of Barbara Dee's Halfway Normal, starts
seventh grade, it's the first time she's been in school in two years
after battling cancer. Academics won't be a challenge. She's been
tutored. In fact she's being bumped up to eighth grade in math and
science.
That's a good thing. In other facets of her life she faces
challenges galore.
Some of Norah's classmates treat her like a survival miracle.
Others think she's milking her survivor status to get special
privileges. They all seem to see her as The Girl Who, forgetting all
other aspects of her personality.
Norah's guidance counselor hovers, trying to get her to take it
easy. She can take the elevator instead of climbing stairs. She's
also pushing her to participate in an Overcoming Challenges program by
sharing her story with the whole school. But she uses euphamisms for
cancer, seemingly unable to say the word.
Nora's parents have a whole list of rules, many involving
distancing from her potentially germy peers. And she must rest much
of the time. She can't participate in the popular after school
programs or hang out with friends on weekends.
There's a really cute guy in Norah's math class who seems to
like her. If only she can keep him from learning her secret!

Everything I know about You
"Immediately people started buzzing. ASSIGNING roommates? No,
wait. We're supposed to be with our FRIENDS in the hotel! That's the
whole point of this trip, to have fun! They aren't doing this right.
IT ISN'T FAIR."
Tally, narrator of Barbara Dee's Everything I Know About You and
her classmates are really excited about the traditional seventh grade
field trip: four days and three nights in Washington DC. Then the
teachers in charge throw water on their good time plans. In order to
promote class unity they will be assigning hotel roommates.
Tally gets her absolute last roommate choice, her nemesis, Ava,
a school spirit rah rah, slave to fashion, seemingly perfect girl,
always judging her peers and being sneaky mean to those who don't live
up to her standards. She and her best friends, Sonnet and Spider,
come up with a plan to make the sleeping arrangements bearable.
They'll spy on their roommates and learn their secrets.
At first they're innocuous: baby shampoo, a stuffed animal.
Then Tally notices troubling things about Ava. She hardly eats a
thing. She's always exercising and writing numbers in a cryptic
notebook. She's emaciated.
"Under her cami, Ava's ribs stuck out. When she did a sit up,
you could see every bone in her spine. Her bones looked like twigs..."
Tally is worried, especially when she figures out what the
notebook numbers mean. She tries to talk to Ava who takes a very
unflattering picture of her and threatens to post it on social media
if she says a word to the adults.
This book is a very personal one for Dee. When she had an
eating disorder in college people didn't talk about them. Her journey
to health was mostly a matter of luck. She's glad that there's now a
wide range of treatments. "Kids need to know that caring
professionals are out there and that full recovery is possible."
On a purrrsonal note, today was Eugene's Uncle Phil's funeral. Some
family members shared memories that really moved everyone to both
tears and laughter. But this minister dude presiding seemed to think
that because Phil was a born again Christian all his friends and
family members were. He was saying stuff like we can all see Phil in
Jesus' arms. I can't. Apart from his physical body I have no clue
where Phil is. I was thinking WTF, Dude? We aren't all in the club.
It's this Christian supremacy thing to assume that everyone is on
board with their theology. Of course this dialogue all happened in my
critical thinking brain. I didn't want to hurt people who were
grieving and vulnerable. (Jules)
Before the funeral she made a Goodwill run to get a sincere sympathy
card for her mother-in-law. While she was there anyway she looked to
see if there was a cat shirt and found an awesome one. Then she got
ice cream at Hannaford. Only there wasn't enough room in the
freezer. Oops! So we had to eat it for lunch. We can't let ice
cream go to waste! (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to ministers see the validity of other
faiths and the deity questioning or nonbelieving options.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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