I'm Just Me (Hardcover, Bound for Schools & Libraries ed.)

Themes: Hi-Lo, bullying, racism, high school life, culture, muslim, african american. Low-level teen fiction tackling tough and gritty topics like foster care, rape, teen pregnancy and more. Series contains two silver medal winners for the Independent Publishers Book Award--and a Moonbeam Children's Book Award. Each novel is approximately 200-pages. Lexile Levels: 390 to 400. Nasreen and Mia are two very different girls. But they stand out at Arondale High. And kids make assumptions about the only Muslim and the new black girl--the only African American--in school. "Who let you into the suburbs?" Samantha asks. Everyone gawks. Nasreen has kept her head down for years. Eighteen months and she's out, she tells herself. Off to college. Mia is bold. Yeah, she wishes she were somewhere else, but she's not going to take the bullying lying down. She has to live her life. Graduate. Get into a good school. The school administrators are ignorant. And worse. The bullying escalates. Both at school and online. The girls come up with a plan to fight back. To regain some dignity. To turn the tables on the bullies.