Just Girls: Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High

So here’s the thing, I couldn’t relate a lot to this book for many reasons. I didn’t have the experience of middle school that most students here in the US had. I moved to America in 8th grade and middle school in Syria is so different than here. 8th grade was just a hectic year for me, but not for the same reasons that others had hectic experiences. I was a brand new student from a different country that not many had heard of, I was learning English as a new language and that was the only thing I really focused on.

Throughout the book, the author displays two group of friends; the Social Queens and the Tough Cookies. The section that I read went in depth about the Tough Cookies and how focused they were on their school work as well as their relationships outside of schools which really only consisted of how close they were to their mothers.
The Tough Cookies struggled with fitting in because they couldn’t afford the things that the Social Queens did, they were excluded from a lot of fun things.

This book really highlights the experiences of different groups of people going through the same events and how different each situation was for each girl. It puts into perspective how the term “literacy” doesn’t only differ from one area to another, or one school to another, it truly makes a difference through each person and their lives at home with how they look at or understand literacy.