Planet Middle School

By Nikki Grimes

Grimes, Nikki. Planet Middle School. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2011.  

ISBN 9781599902845

Nikki Grimes creates humorous and heartfelt poems to tell the story of a twelve year old girl who is going through puberty. I can't say enough good things about this book. While reading, I found myself empathizing with the main character Joylin, and it brought me back to my experiences during such an "interesting" part of a girls' life. With that being said, the target audience for this book is definitely females around 12 years and older. Adult women will enjoy the humor Grimes uses to talk about a difficult part of girls lives. This book contains several laugh out loud moments that every women is sure to enjoy.

The layout of this book is specifically arranged to tell a story with poems of events in a sequential order. There are no illustrations in this book, and the only artwork is on the dust jacket. However, the cover art is important in how the reader visualizes the main character, Joylin. The cover displays an African American girl looking up at a sky of clouds and a basketball hoop. Young readers will visualize this girl when they read through the poems, but they may not if the picture on the front was a different girl. It can be hard for young readers to hear a subtle tone of a different race. Adult readers will be able to tell the culture of the characters by the poets' dialect. This book does not contain a table of contents, index, or reference to assist the reader in finding individual poems. Each poem is distinguishable by it's personal title. At the end of the book there is an acknowledges page from the author. 

The overall quality of this book is excellent. Every poem has individual meaning, but when they are used together they walk the reader through a funny and embarrassing journey. Nikki Grimes is the the sole author of the poems in this book. She provides a good mixture of emotions and moods throughout the book. The reader will be able to put themselves in the poems and experience the embarrassment, joy, and frustration as they take on this passage of life. Each poem in the book is written in verse. There are no rhyming patterns or distinctive sound, but the poems have a nice flow and are easy to read. The main focus of poetic elements are sense imagery and emotional impact with a touch of figurative language in personification and metaphors. The story of all the poems is the major player in this book, and Grimes knows how to capture an audiences attention with her humor and honesty. This is a must read for the middle and upper grades. 

Ultimately, I believe this book would be great to use with a female book club. With poems pertaining to personal female experiences, all genders may not feel comfortable talking aloud about the topic unless they were in a comfortable setting with the same gender. One poem that I found that could be used as a reflection on middle school is Planet Middle School. Not only is it the title of this book, but it can be used as a personal reflection piece. No matter how kids act, every one of them has awkward moments in middle school. I would use this poem to aide in a short writing prompt. The group will be asked to read and reflect on the specified poem silently first, and then the teacher/sponsor or a selected student will read the poem aloud to the group. The students will then be given the following prompt, "How can you relate to this poem? In your journal, write about a moment when you felt like you didn't belong?" Let the girls know that they do not have to share anything with the group that they do not want to. Make sure no one in the group feels pressured because this could be a sensitive subject. After the group has been given sometime to reflect, ask if anyone would like to discuss what they wrote. It could really turn out to be a wonderful and enlightening discussion.

Planet Middle School
by Nikki Grimes

"It was embarrassing,"
I told KeeLee.
"I'm trying on all these
strange contraptions,
and my mom's right outside
the dressing room,
dying for a peek!"
KeeLee shrugged.
"You're growing up," she said.
"That always weirds out parents."
"Still."
"I know."
Thank God for KeeLee.
She's the only familiar thing
about this crazy school year.
Bad enough my body's
turned against me.
On top of that
everything else is new:
new school, new teacher,
new classrooms
I need a map to find.
I swear, some days
I feel like an alien,
dropped off on
Planet Middle School
by mistake.
I keep scanning the skies,
searching for that spaceship
that's gonna take me home.