By Lisa Fipps
A middle-grade novel in verse about a girl bullied about her weight who slowly learns to stop making herself small.
Ellie has been called a whale since she was five, when she cannonballed into the pool at her birthday party and someone yelled 'Splash!' Ever since, she's lived by her own Fat Girl Rules, all built to keep herself invisible: don't eat in front of people, don't draw attention, don't take up room. The meanest voices aren't only at school. They're at her own dinner table, where her mother pushes diets and even weight-loss surgery, and her sister joins in. But Ellie has her dad in her corner, a new next-door friend, a beloved dog, and a therapist who asks her a question that turns things around: what if she stopped shrinking and floated out big and unashamed, like a starfish? It's told in short poems that are by turns funny and gutting, and it's about Ellie deciding to be seen.
The verse is what makes this one bearable. The poems are short and full of white space, so your child moves fast through pages that carry real pain, and gets room to breathe between them. The cruelty comes from classmates, from strangers, and hardest of all from Ellie's own mother. But Ellie is fierce and genuinely funny company, and you're rooting for her from the first page. Watching her slowly learn to take up space is a real triumph. It won the Schneider Family Book Award, and for a child who's ever been teased about their body, it can feel like the first book that truly saw them.