Listen to the Girls

Gr 5 Up–Calla, who is Black, is just finishing up her seventh grade year and is excited to be spending the summer with her best friends, Charlee and Jacoby. She finally has a summer with no camps or schedules and was ready for a quiet end to the year. However, when a local reporter breaks a story about one of her teachers, Calla finds that her calm is shattered, and she is forced to reckon with the true nature of her relationship with Mr. ­Chavis. Did he really have inappropriate conduct with girls at his own school? Giles expertly weaves friendship and family storylines into a novel that is ultimately about sexual harassment and grooming behaviors. Calla reckons with how Mr. Chavis treated her and realizes that what she thought was flattery and kindness was really off-limits behavior where she should have trusted her instincts. Readers are exposed to the definition of grooming behaviors and what is and is not appropriate in a child-adult relationship, all incorporated naturally into the narrative. While some of the social media aspects of this novel may feel unrealistic and already a bit outdated, the importance of the lessons of this novel cannot be overstated.