Vicious is My Middle Name
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- 8,49 €
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- 8,49 €
Publisher Description
"...a must-read for anyone who has ever felt like a misfit and found solace in books and music." - Jennifer Whiteford, author of Grrrl
With a partially-shaved head, purple Doc Marten boots, and the sinking realization that no one in a fifty-mile radius has ever heard of her favorite all-female punk band Lite Brite, 13-year-old Sydney Vicious Talcott wants to be anywhere but her new home of Beaver Dam, NC, especially when mean girl Brittany Winters treats her like the punch-line to every joke. But just as life begins to seem more tolerable with her two new book-nerd friends and a growing appreciation for the beauty of the Appalachian mountains, Sydney discovers that a shady corporation is planning to build an environmentally-damaging asphalt plant right next to the school. Her attempts to work through the system to stop the plant's construction fail, so it's up to Sydney to fight the corporation and their political lackeys the only way she can, using the do-it-yourself tools she has learned from punk rock. But before she can triumph, Sydney, her family, and friends must endure bullying, harassment, immigration raids, and more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two years after her father's death, a can-do punk rock enthusiast moves with her mother from Rochester, N.Y., to Beaver Dam, N.C. Sporting purple Doc Martens and an asymmetrical haircut, outspoken Sydney Vicious Talcott, 13 and white, initially feels out of place but quickly makes friends with two fellow book-loving misfits: Shawn, "the only Black kid in our entire grade," and Guatemalan American Rita. When a wealthy landowner partners with a corrupt development company to build a potentially harmful asphalt plant near the middle school, and speaking out at a public hearing doesn't work, Sydney uses the power of punk rock–style DIY—zines, music, and community outreach—to fight back. Though it's her love of her favorite girl group, Lite Brite, that inspires action, she gradually begins to broaden both her taste in music and her worldview, learning about Appalachian history and culture, and, around a retaliatory immigration raid and other plot elements, recognizing her privilege as a rebel and outcast by choice. Despite one-note villains and underdeveloped plot elements, Sydney's distinct, often humorous first-person voice (interspersed with inspirational art and letters from Lite Brite's lead singer) and her celebration of inclusive resistance make this a socially conscious read from Dunn (Global Punk, for adults). Ages 9–12.
