the thing about jellyfish (334 Pages)

Ali Benjamin, the author of this book, has written a winner that I am going to give to an extraordinary middle school science teacher. I thought of her throughout my reading  of this book. I believe Suzy Swanson probably falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. She is a kid who collects all kinds of information. She knows stuff that is incredible.  Her very best friend, Franny Jackson, loves to hear her talk about all of these fascinating things! But then she and her best friend find themselves in middle school and all of a sudden Franny is not interested in Suzy's information. They drift apart, and Suzy stops talking. She doesn't talk to her family, she doesn't talk in school. When she hears her friend Franny died by drowning when on a summer vacation in Maryland, she becomes convinced that Franny's death couldn't have been a result of drowning because Franny was an accomplished swimmer. So Suzy begins to do research on what could have happened. Her science teacher, Mrs. Thurton is her favorite teacher. She gives her students all kinds of information that is fascinating to most of the kids and certainly to Suzy. Mrs. Thurton requires her students to do a research paper and present it orally to the class. How Suzy handles this is presented in the rest of this book. It's a winner!