Review: Adult Publishing for Middle-School Girls by Stacy Jo Coffey
I randomly stumbled upon author Stacy Jo Coffey on Instagram. I just loved the illustrations and “Dear Diary” vibes I was getting from the cover of a Young Adult book she just had published that popped up on my feed. Stacy ended up reaching out and asked if I was interested in reading a copy. I love a good YA read every once and a while so I obliged and Adult Publishing for Middle-School Girls showed up on my doorstep a few weeks later.
The book takes place in a small town in Arizona in 1976 - already I’m sold because I love reading anything set in the 1960s or ‘70s. As soon as I started I thought to myself, “12-year-old me would have loved something like this.” The story is centered around Melanie Chaffee, the 13-year-old main character, and her group of friends. Melanie decides that she wants a new pair of platform sandals, but her “uptight” (more on this character later) mother won’t let her have them. Melanie comes up with a plan: she’ll buy the shoes herself with her own money. But how is a middle-school girl supposed to get a job?
Serendipitously, a few boys approach Melanie (who is a talented artist) with an idea. They ask her to draw pictures of naked women for them and they’ll pay her to do it. As the back of the book reads, Melanie “sells out for the price of a pair of righteous platform sandals.”
The book does an excellent job at bringing to life the atmosphere in any middle school. It’s the age when people start to experience what it’s like to be attracted to other people but in a desperate and painfully awkward way because, well, they’re still children.
In addition to touching on the difficult, uncomfortable, and (I’ll say it again) awkward moments that are age 11-13, Adult Publishing for Middle-School Girls highlights how strained race relations were in the United States, over 10 years after Jim Crow Laws were overturned. In the book, one of Melanie’s best friends is a Black girl named Mavis. Mavis is the only Black girl in her school, and almost everyone (except for Melanie) is afraid of her and won’t be her friend.
One of the more powerful moments in the book is the day that Mavis invites Melanie over to her house for the first time. Melanie mentions earlier in the book that they had never seen one another’s houses, and that bothered her. Melanie didn’t see any problem with being friends with Mavis and says throughout the book that she doesn’t understand racism. It serves as a reminder to the reader that racism isn’t innate but rather learned.
The adult women, Melanie’s mother and the neighbor who lives across the street, Nina, ended up surprising me. By the end of Adult Publishing for Middle-School Girls both characters become major players in Melanie’s story. I was especially surprised at how Melanie’s mother, Shirley, turned out. She is described as an uptight and difficult character in the beginning, but that’s through the eyes of Melanie, who just wants her platform sandals. When in reality she’s a mom who gave up her dreams to raise a family. Coffey lets us in on that side of Shirley towards the end of the book.
Nina is a surprising character, if not a little random, but I think it did add a little something more to the story. If only for the solid advice that she gives Melanie before the school dance - the climax of the book - of course.
There are certain lines that are powerful and stood out for me. At one point, the boys that Melanie has been drawing for start pressuring her to make her side project into a full-fledged business. Melanie laments, “Why do boys never listen? And why do boys always take everything they can from girls?” It perfectly describes a moment that I think most girls have experienced at one point in their lives.
Adult Publishing for Middle-School Girls is a great introduction to taking life into your own hands for the burgeoning middle school-aged feminist in your lives.
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