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3.9 • 67 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
With multiple starred reviews, don't miss this humorous, poignant, and original contemporary story about bullying, broken friendships, social media, and the failures of communication between kids. From John David Anderson, author of the acclaimed Ms. Bixby’s Last Day.
In middle school, words aren’t just words. They can be weapons. They can be gifts. The right words can win you friends or make you enemies. They can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they can change things forever.
When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, Frost and his friends Deedee, Wolf, and Bench come up with a new way to communicate: leaving sticky notes for each other all around the school. It catches on, and soon all the kids in school are leaving notes—though for every kind and friendly one, there is a cutting and cruel one as well.
In the middle of this, a new girl named Rose arrives at school and sits at Frost’s lunch table. Rose is not like anyone else at Branton Middle School, and it’s clear that the close circle of friends Frost has made for himself won’t easily hold another. As the sticky-note war escalates, and the pressure to choose sides mounts, Frost soon realizes that after this year, nothing will ever be the same.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Addressing bullying and true friendship, Anderson's pitch-perfect story follows four friends and the "Sticky Note War" that upends the status quo at their school. Frost, a budding poet, is part of a tight-knit group of friends that provides a refuge from the chaos of middle school in small-town Michigan. Rounding out Frost's crew are J.J. "Bench" Jones, a quintessential benchwarmer; Advik "Deedee" Patel, a Dungeon & Dragons enthusiast; and Morgan (aka Wolf), a piano prodigy. The boys' friendship is thrown into disarray by new student Rose Holland, who challenges their quiet acceptance of hateful taunts and bullying. Arriving just after a cell phone ban and the rise of the use of sticky notes to communicate both kind and hurtful messages, Rose is ostracized, so the friends reluctantly take her in, driving a wedge between increasingly popular Bench and the others. Anderson (Ms. Bixby's Last Day) captures the tumultuous joys and pains of middle school with honesty, creating characters with whom readers will find common ground and insight. Words have lingering and persistent power, Anderson makes clear, but so does standing up for others and making one's voice heard. Ages 8 12.
Customer Reviews
Pretty good
I think it was pretty good, I liked the message and the racism was part of the message. Over all I think it was a pretty great book.
Words are Ghosts
I’m in middle school and this is possibly the best representation of what I witness five days a week. TV and movies always get it wrong. Most of the time there’s no popular mean girl or rich cement-headed tough guy. It’s always, at least what I’ve seen of it, random crap and insults and accusations made simply for the sake of saying something. This has possibly been the worst year of my school life, because everyone (except a few nice people) became class A butt munches. And this book says it how it is. I couldn’t put it down after I started reading it and highly recommend it to anyone who ever experienced middle school. Because Wolf was right, “Words are ghosts that haunt you forever” especially if there not true.
Could have been better…
This book was way to long! The story dragged on and on, sometimes they would talk about one event throughout 2-3 chapters! Plus, there was racism and homophobia in the book. I recommend this book if you like long stories and you don’t support BLM or Lgbtq+