Taking Up Space

April 1, 2021
Navigating adolescence isn't a piece of cake. Dorito-loving seventh grader Sarah Weber is a standout basketball player on her team even though she's had some bad practices lately. Thanks to puberty, her body keeps changing, and, on top of recent awkwardness in her relationships, she feels overwhelmed by this. Another thing she doesn't have control over is her household food situation: Sarah's mom is controlling about food, sometimes forgets to feed her dinner, and what little there is to eat in their kitchen is restricted to things she deems acceptable. Sarah's dad works long hours and doesn't seem to notice what's going on. In an effort to help her game and gain back some control, Sarah begins to obsessively monitor her food intake. Thankfully, her friends and coach advocate for healthy, intuitive ways of eating, and they help Sarah address her disordered eating. The book surrounds the protagonist with a determined support system and does not place blame in a simplistic way. Gerber constructs a straightforward structure: A health problem becomes known, a solution is proposed, and then it works. Although real life is rarely so neat and tidy, the book supplies a positive representation of constructive approaches to an often misunderstood condition. Authentic basketball scenes and Sarah's developing crush on Benny, her health class partner who later becomes her teammate in a cooking competition, round out the story. Sarah is presumed White; Benny is Persian. Pragmatic and valuable. (Fiction. 9-13)

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May 1, 2021
Grades 5-8 Sarah Weber is a star on her seventh-grade basketball team until puberty hits, and suddenly she feels clumsy, slow, and easily winded. She decides cutting back on eating will help, and for a while she feels energized, until the day she collapses mid-game on the court. Spurred on by BFF Ryan, Sarah confides in Coach Lemon, who arranges for the school counselor and Sarah's parents to get her professional help. Gerber's descriptions of Sarah's emotional state and obsessive thinking patterns are spot-on: she equates food with love, wants her body to go back to ""normal,"" and is afraid to eat certain foods. Sarah's mom (who has her own eating disorder) is also particularly apt; she often ""forgets"" to prepare dinner and keeps only enough food in the house for the next meal. Misunderstandings with teammates, a crush on a boy in her health class, and preparations for a Chef Junior contest round out this well-developed narrative. Appended with an author's note and resources, this is both informative and entertaining, especially for younger teens.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2021
Seventh-grade basketball player Sarah loves to "crush it on the court" with her best friends, Ryan and Emilia. "It's not hard for me to say what I need in basketball, because the rules are clear." Unfortunately, Sarah doesn't have the same confidence about food and eating. Her mother, who has her own complicated history with disordered eating, either controls what and how much Sarah eats or forgets to feed her altogether. When puberty-related sluggishness affects her game, Sarah decides to follow her own misguided "rules of being healthy," which she's cobbled together from her mom and her coach. Her unhealthy eating habits spiral, but fortunately she has a caring support system of friends and adults to help her confront her problem. Writing from personal experience, Gerber (Braced and Focused) is no stranger to tackling difficult topics; Sarah is a sympathetic character whose first-person perspective believably portrays the confusion, discomfort, denial, and isolation that come from having issues with food. Friendship drama (Sarah secretly likes Emilia's crush), basketball action, and cooking scenes enhance the narrative. This book's positive approach to body and mental health issues will reassure readers that "taking up space" is absolutely okay.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)