Keller, Tae. Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone. Fiction. Random, 04/2022. 288pp. $17.99. 978-0-593-31052-6. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 5-7.
Jennifer Chan is new to the town Mallory calls Nowhereville, and rumors are already flying. Mal is the first to meet her and quickly recognizes Jennifer is different: she’s not afraid to believe or trust, and that makes her dangerous. Dangerous to the seventh grade pecking order and dangerous to Mal, because it is social suicide to be friends with someone who doesn’t understand the rules about how the world works. But when a confrontation meant to rebalance power and teach Jennifer a lesson goes badly wrong and Jennifer disappears, Mal realizes being different may be the only way to bring her home. Told from Mallory’s Korean American perspective and through the journal entries of Jennifer (who is Chinese American), readers get inside the feelings, background, and events of typically painful middle-school friendships, betrayals, and identity-seeking. Strong supporting adult and tween characters and an author’s note about her experience being bullied and later confronting her frenemies, add to a realistic, gripping, and thought-provoking story.
Melissa McAvoy, Retired
