Changes for Julie (American Girl Collection Series: Julie #6) Book

This book opens in such a totally insane way. apparently it's a new school year & julie has a new friend. joy is deaf & i guess we are supposed to assume that she is in julie's class due to new legislation that has been passed, allowing for students with various disabilities to be mainstreamed into regular classrooms (because there is a bit about this in the "looking back" section in the back of the book). joy lip reads & is having trouble following an assignment because the teacher's face is somewhat obscured by the angle at which she is standing. she passes julie a note requesting assistance & julie passes back a note explaining the lesson. the teacher busts them passing notes & sentences them both to detention after school. she does not permit julie or joy to explain what the note-passing was all about.

julie's experiences of injustice are pretty egregious, aren't they? maybe i am having trouble swallowing it because her stories are set less than forty years ago & deal with laws that are currently on the books, but i really don't understand how any adult in julie's school is managing to hold on to their job.

rather than stewing over this obvious example of egregious discrimination & poor teaching standards while in detention, julie instead frets over how pointless detention is. she has to write "i will not pass notes" 100 times, like she's bart simpson or something. she thinks her time could be better spent doing something to help the school, like cleaning up litter or something. sweetie, that's why they have janitors. maybe julie grew up to be newt gingrich's campaign manager?

a few days later, julie learns that elections for student government are happening soon. the most popular boy in the sixth grade is running for president & everyone assumes he's a shoo-in because, you know, he's the most popular boy in sixth grade. julie swings by the principal's office & learns that fifth graders are certainly welcome to run for student government, although none ever has. what the fuck is wrong with this school? when i was a kid, student government elections were a big deal & the rules for running were carefully explained in every class so that people could decide if they wanted to try it or not. but julie had to hear about this shit through the grapevine. ridiculous.

she decides to run on a "make detention useful" platform. she enlists joy to be her vice president. shenanigans ensue. people make fun of her & her campaign because: she's only a fifth grader. she's not the most popular boy in school. she's a girl. her vice president is deaf. she has a platform that goes beyond just "pizza should be available in the cafeteria". someone defaces her campaign posters. lots of people make fun of joy for being deaf. julie starts to realize that having a deaf running mate is a big liability & wonders if there's some way she can ask joy to drop out of the race without looking like a total asshole. joy picks up on this & things come to a head when julie overhears some popular girls in her grade making fun of the way joy talks. she tries to shield joy from the truth, but joy doesn't appreciate it. the girls do get in trouble. they are sent to detention. but joy spends a few days skipping school.

julie convinces the teacher to let her conduct her own detention with the girls who made fun of joy. she teaches them some basic sign language. they start to think that sign language is really cool ("like a secret code"--listen, bitches, sign language is the way deaf people communicate; it's not some totally awesome secret language for you & your buddies to co-opt) & they want to apologize to joy. julie takes them to joy's house & they apologize in sign language. they also pledge to vote for julie & joy & to help get out the vote on their behalf. which they do, & julie & joy win.

ugh.