By Barbara Dee
Cast as Romeo in the eighth-grade play, a girl finds herself falling for the classmate playing Juliet, and wondering how she can have a crush on a girl and a boy at the same time.
Mattie loves books and gets pulled into her class's production of Romeo and Juliet, first backstage, then, when a boy drops out, cast as Romeo opposite Gemma, the smart, funny, British new girl playing Juliet. As rehearsals go on, Mattie realizes she's falling for Gemma. The confusing part is that just days earlier she'd had a crush on a boy named Elijah. Can she like both? Mattie works it out the way she works out everything, through the play she's living inside.
This is one of the gentlest bi-awakening stories out there for this age. Mattie's not in crisis, she's just curious and a little flustered, and the book lets her simply figure it out. The Romeo and Juliet frame is clever and fun, and it keeps things light even as Mattie works through a real question. For a child noticing they might like more than one kind of person, it's a friendly, undramatic yes.