Funny and poignant, You Go First by 2018 Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly is an engaging exploration of family, spelling, art, bullying, and the ever-complicated world of middle school friendships. Erin Entrada Kelly’s perfectly pitched tween voice will resonate with fans of Kate DiCamillo’s Raymie Nightingale and Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out and Back Again.Twelve-year-old Charlotte Lockard and eleven-year-old Ben Boxer are separated by more...
Details You Go First
| Title | You Go First |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9780062414182 |
| Author | Erin Entrada Kelly |
| Release Date | Apr 10th, 2018 |
| Publisher | Greenwillow Books |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Childrens, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Contemporary |
| Rating |
Reviews You Go First
Erin Entrada Kelly is a masterful writer with succinct pacing, inventive ways into a story, and wonderful multi-character voice. Plus, she has such a gift for giving voice and life to characters who feel isolated yet yearn to connect and, lucky for readers, eventually do. "Someday, I'll be digging for specimens in Egyptian pyramids and none of this will matter."
Thanks to the Kid Lit Exchange network for the review copy of this book - all opinions are my own.This is a quiet book about the power of connections when you are feeling alone - just having ONE person to connect with can be life saving and life changing. Charlotte and Ben are both struggling with friendships and family and their online Scrabble game is what brings them together - I love that Ben picks up the phone to call her to break the cycle ...
Richie’s Picks: YOU GO FIRST by Erin Entrada Kelly, Greenwillow, April 2018, 304p., ISBN: 978-0-06-241-418-2“A gas” -- 1960s slang for having a lot of fun“Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friendWhen people can be so cold?They’ll hurt you and desert you”--Carole King” (1971)“Charlotte wasn’t sure what happened, but suddenly there were other things to do. There was too much to worry about. Middle school infected her lif...
Over the course of six days two preteens engaged in an online Scrabble game both undergo major life changes. Both Charlotte and Ben are sans friends IRL (that's in real life for the uninitiated.) Both are bright and inquisitive youngsters, sticking out like sore thumbs in a land populated by homogenous middle schoolers. Alternating chapters focus on the scenarios in each child's life. Charlotte's father has been hospitalized following a heart att...
Ahhh this book got me in the feels! Erin Entrada Kelly is a master of that particular ache that middle school brings. These amazing characters will stick with you. Hand this one to kids also feeling the ache of middle school or readers who live for character-driven stories (like meeee).
I think this is the first middle grade book I've read that features an online-only friendship. That alone makes it unique, especially when adolescent social media is portrayed so negatively. The book dealt with other important themes as well - friendships, bullying, divorce, families. My only complaint is that the story felt a little slow.
I had such high expectations for this book, because I've really loved her previous books, but this one just - fell short of the mark. Charlotte and Ben never really connected with each other, preferring to share trivialities instead of actual meaningful interactions like the premise suggests. I liked that they each made friends outside of each other but the implication that Charlotte and Ben would drift apart now that they had 'real' friends was ...
4.5/5 for You Go First! Thx to @erinentrada for sharing this ARC with me. It doesn't come out until April, 2018! I am sharing my copy with the @kidlitexchange network. All opinions are my own._*_*_*_*_*Charlotte and Ben are online scrabble buddies; Charlotte lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Ben lives in a small town in Louisiana. Both are gifted students who struggle to make friends and both are having family problems at home. Charlotte'...
Charlotte’s dad has a heart attack. Ben’s parents are divorcing. Charlotte may lose her best friend. Ben may run for student council. How does an online scrabble game connect them? Read to find out!
touches on some of the same topics as her past books: social ostracization, bullying, friendship, etc. loved the structure of the book in terms of POV switches, the facts at the beginning of Charlotte's chapters, the dictionary definitions at the beginning of each section that related to the story, and the integration of nerdy science trivia.I felt a little dissatisfied with the ending bc of reasons that I might discuss later and tag for spoilers...
So sweet! Charlotte and Ben are so adorably dorky (and honestly pretty relatable) I loved them so much. This book perfectly captures middle school and all its ups and downs; bullies, relationship with your parents, growing apart with old friends and gaining new friends. Reading this made the 12 year old me feel much less alone. Also I can honestly say I got a nice science and vocabulary lesson from all the rabbit holes. 😆 Loved it!
Tugs at the heart!
Truly a magical book! The story of online scrabble buddies Charlotte and Ben, who are each going through friend and family issues is simply brilliant storytelling at its best. I couldn't put it down. A classic.
“One friend can make all the difference.” 💙💙
Sometimes in middle school the biggest things and the smallest things end up being the same size to your heart.
Separated by 1,000 miles, middle schoolers Ben Boxer, 11, living in Louisiana, and Charlotte Lockard, 12, living in Pennsylvania, have been playing online scrabble games with each other since elementary school, though they have never spoken to each other, let alone met. In fact, they only know each other by their online names Lottie Lock and Ben Boot. And both kids are gifted, but lonely outsiders in their respective schools. Yet, over the course...
nterest Level: [email protected] #partner Thanks to the @kidlitexchange network for the review copy of this book - all opinions are my own.What if you were having all kinds of problems in your home life and at school but you didn't have a best friend to talk to? Or what if you are having all kinds of problems at home and your best friend is one of those problems? This is the problem that Charlotte and Ben are facing. Ben is a very gifted student...
Two children meet playing an online word game. When each of their lives starts to go differently than planned they begin to communicate more with each other as they share what is happening and seek a friend to listen.Charlotte's father is having heart surgery and her best friend seems to be drifting away. As a smarter kid she does not have many other friends and begins trying to navigate middle school without the friend she had always had by her ...
You Go First is similarly structured to Hello, Universe (Kelly's Newbery Medal winner) and I think coming fresh off the heels of that title, this one seems to be underwhelming people. I rather liked it though. Yes, it reads like Hello, Universe with two different characters alternating chapters, but on a much smaller scale. And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the two are similar. Hello, Universe feels bigger, more important. You G...
Sweet young middle-school story of two bright, quirky kids undergoing tough times with (mild) family problems and bullying. Very readable and relatable. My only issue with it is that the bullying it portrays is fairly generic...I'm sure there is plenty of the "mean cool popular kids slam your head into a locker and exclude you from their clubs and tell you you're a dork and no one likes you" stuff going on in a lot of schools, still, but I also f...
So glad I met Charlotte and Ben. Charlotte wants to be a geologist and loves words. Ben is obsessed with Harry Potter, presidential history, and recycling. Charlotte in Philly and Ben in Louisiana meet while playing an on-line scrabble game. Both working their way through middle school, about which Charlotte says, "Middle school seemed like an endless aching game where everyone knew the rules but her." You move through one week with Charlotte and...
Both eleven-year-old Ben and twelve-year-old Charlotte lead complicated lives. Ben is surprised and devastated when he learns that his father is leaving his mother. Charlotte's father is extremely ill, staying in the hospital, AND her best friend has found another replacement for her. Both Ben and Charlotte are brilliant but spend most of their time alone. They do have one another, they are friends through an online Scrabble game. As the year goe...
This realistic fiction book is a sweet story about the complications of middle school, and how relationships change in our lives. Whether it is a close friend or a parent divorce, this change rocks our world!This was an easy book to read as there were short chapters and each started with a word play on an online scrabble game between two people. The word usually reflected the tone of the chapter and the relationship issue driving the story.There ...
I knew this book would be good, but I had no clue HOW GOOD. This book was everything and a perfect recommendation for precocious, too smart kids that don't fit in. It reminded me a lot of See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng in terms of ALL. THE. FACTS. THESE. KIDS. KNOW.It follows Charlotte & Ben as they play online Scrabble together over the course of a really hard week for both of them. Their stories mirror and complement each other, but are en...
My reaction was more like 1.5 stars but I listened to the audiobook and not really caring for the narration played into my reaction, so I am giving some benefit of the doubt that this might work better on the page. I thought this was too essentially similar to Hello Universe and yet also more dependent on cliches than that book. Also as I suggested in my review of Snow Lane, I really think Kelly doesn’t do right by a certain character type in h...
I LOVED this, oh my gosh. The character voices are so strong and it's such a moving story that so perfectly conveys all the little moments that are so important to middle school life (and life in general). Great for tweens looking for contemporary sad-ish stories. And adults who like crying, whatever.
Charlotte and Ben are two middle school students who are struggling with friends and family stress. They connect through an online Scrabble game and this new friendship becomes invaluable as the chaos in each of their lives seems to spin out of control. A great story about navigating life’s ups and downs. I look forward to sharing with students.
I do bare witness to the 'peripheral kids', who never seem to find their place in the school hierarchy. My heart goes out to them. And while their struggle is shown in this book, I had a hard time connecting with the two protagonists.
A great spotlight on how hard it can be to fit in during middle school, especially if you're the kid smarter than all the rest or the kid dubbed "the biggest dork." Wonderful recommendation for grades 5+.
The perennial middle school struggle: do I try to make myself like everyone else? Or do I take the risk of being myself and being ostracized? I wish it wasn’t still an issue. This story left my heart aching for these sweet, authentic characters. Choose kind, people.