A pick-up game of soccer ends in a bloody lip.I believe that every incident in Merci Suarez Changes Gears results in either blood or destruction. And it's just a coming-of-age middle school book! But you know what they say . . . "If it bleeds, it leads."
A bike ride ends in a black eye.
A P.E. baseball pitch ends in a head injury and another bloody lip (and a really unfair detention).
A (really cool jackal) costume gets smashed to pieces (maliciously).
A drive home from school ends in a car-totalling accident (and more bloodied facial features).
A Halloween party ends in body-covering sea lice bites?
An Egyptian school project ends in someone losing their eyebrows.
My biggest Merci take-away: Communicate with your children! Trust that your kids will be able to handle difficult and sometimes uncomfortable topics and know that hearing it from you is the best way for them to learn (definitely better than the internet! or them living a life of ignorance!). All that secrecy about Merci's grandpa having Alzheimer's was so frustrating. For most of the book, I thought it was because her family didn't know what was happening either. But no, for some reason they just didn't think they should tell Merci and it made it a lot worse. Don't make the same mistake.
