Changes for Julie

Changes for Julie, written by Megan McDonald, is part of the American Girl series. I choose this book to go along with the other book, Madam President I selected that represented a sociopolitical issue of my choice.  This book also focuses on a girl running for class president although in this book it focuses on both Julie running for president and her deaf friend, Joy who is running as Julie's vice president.  The book dealt with many issues, such as girls running against boys in elections, popularity, and children with disabilities.  In the book Joy is made fun of for being deaf and Julie almost drops her as her vice president.  This would be a good discussion in a classroom to examine why or why not this would be a good or bad choice.  Julie doubts herself throughout the book, and wasn't always a strong female character.  While I think children could relate with Julie, I would have liked to see her be much more confident.  

Julie's main issue that she wants to change with the school is detention.  She thinks that it would be better for the children to do something related to what they did wrong, rather than sitting in a room writing sentences.  She tries out this technique with some of the girls who were making fun of Joy by having them learn sign language instead of going to detention.  The girls end up understanding Joy a little bit more and feeling bad for making fun of her.  

Overall, I think this was a good book and would appeal more to girls than boys.  I would like to find more books that deal with issues like this that would appeal to both sexes and on a variety of reading levels.