This is a tough, emotional read but it discusses healing and acceptance. Throughout the novel, Ellie uses their love to boost her own self-worth and she learns how to stand up for herself. She has people on her side who love her and celebrate her just as she is.

And I loved that Ellie had a core friend group who would be there for her no matter what. She also sees a therapist who compassionately gives her the tools to stand up against hate. Ellie has a fierce ally and protector in her father.

To be honest, it was very hard to read these scenes but I think it will make tween readers who are dealing with the same type of bullying feel like they’re not alone. Ellie has a very difficult, emotionally abusive relationship with her mother. She is happiest when she’s in the pool and can escape to her safe space. This book is about Ellie, a fat girl who is sick and tired of being shamed for her weight. Starfish by Lisa Fipps is an incredibly heart wrenching novel in verse. (Mar.It’s #MiddleGradeMarch and I wanted to make sure to highlight one of my recent favorites. Fipps’s use of verse is as effective as it is fitting Ellie dreams of becoming a storyteller and poet “to help people feel what it’s like/ to live in/ someone else’s skin.” A triumphant and poignantly drawn journey toward self-acceptance and self-advocacy. With support from new friends, her father, and a therapist who acknowledges her feelings and helps her discover her voice, Ellie finds the strength to stand up to her bullies, including her mother, who pressures Ellie to undergo bariatric surgery, and verbally abusive older siblings.

When her best friend Viv moves away, Ellie feels alone at her Dallas, Tex., school, but she soon forms a tentative bond with her new neighbor, Catalina Rodriguez, whose boisterous, loving Mexican family makes her feel accepted for who she is. Told in verse, this affirming representation of fatness stars Ellie Montgomery-Hofstein, 11, who, to avoid the bullying she’s endured since the age of five, lives by the Fat Girl Rules-the unspoken rules one learns “when you break them-/ and suffer/ the consequences.” Finding solace from taunts and judgment in her fenced-in backyard’s pool, Ellie, who is half-Christian, half-Jewish, and presumed white, enjoys sprawling in the water like a starfish, weightless and free.

Starfish lisa fipps book review