Noah is just trying to make it through seventh grade.

The girls are confusing, the homework is boring, and his older sister, Emma, has been acting pretty strange, even though Noah thought she’d been better about eating. The only place he really feels at peace is in art class, with a block of clay in his hands.

As it becomes clear through Emma’s ever-stricter food rules and regulations that she’s not really doing better at all, the normal seventh-grade year Noah was hoping for begins to seem pretty unattainable. In an affecting and realistic novel with bright spots of humor, Jo Knowles captures the complexities of navigating middle school while feeling helpless in the face of a family crisis.

• Now in paperback, Jo Knowles’s second foray into middle grade takes readers into an alternative junior high school, where Noah and his friends navigate the sometimes humorous complexities of their relationships with girls, their families, and one another. 
• In the gritty manner that Jo Knowles is known for, she introduces a fresh perspective on an all-too-common problem when Noah notices that his older sister Emma is falling back into self-destructive eating habits. 
• Told from the perspective of the younger sibling in a family in crisis, Noah’s view of the world around him is thoughtful and nuanced with bright spots of humor.