DNFed halfway through. The girl having a crush on her teacher is a large part of the story, and being a teacher myself, that was just really uncomfortable. It still handles the themes of grief and isolation in a compelling way.

A tale of a young girl, Vinnie, struggles to cope after her father passing away. Vinnie experiences much difficulty in being told to pack up and move to a boring, small little town. The only thing that seemed to go right in her life was the stunning features and tender heart of her beloved new teacher. When not day dreaming of their future together, Vinnie was tied up trying to handle her chaotic and speechless little brother. In a build up of fury and stress Vinnie releases her tension by rebelling with scratching up her teacher's car and refusing to listen and stand up for her actions, causing a very fain friendship with a tall, awkward girl Lupe to be almost diminished and her brother to run away. Frantic, Vinnie struggles to gain a true perspective on life as the thought of never finding her brother floods her mind.
Katherine Paterson is a wonderful author in her writing technique. Her ability to hold the reader's attention and suck in their emotion is uncanny. Words flood across the page and the reader is left to suck it all up as a bowl of nourishing soup. Paterson has a way of vividly describing a scene without going into pages of unnecessary, painstaking detail. She throws the reader in the body of the character and allows you to think and feel the way they do.
The themes presented in the story reflect similar themes presented in her most well-know story of 'Bridge to Terabithia". Each main character is struggling with part of their family connection and seeks a secret romance with their favorite teachers. Both main characters experience life changing events that can shake a child's while world. In both books Paterson keeps her same writing style with a few differences in the way the story is set up to differ the books and make them their own, unique creation.

review from 1996:

"This book was extremely depressing, full of bad feelings, anger, grief, hate, and frustration.
Vinnie and her family move to live with their grandmother in a tiny town in Virginia. Vinny desperately tries to get her brother to say one word, get the attentions of her favorite handsome teacher, endure her plasticky grandma, and control her feelings of grief and longing for her father who recently died of cancer."

I know this book is a bit older but it’s still on point. Katherine Patterson always hits the mark. Grief affects everyone differently, especially those who already have issues dealing with day to day. We never know what everyone else is dealing with in their lives. Be kind.

oooohhhh, i liked youuuu

SBC Challenge: spring word in title

I like going through library bookshelves and discovering tucked away gems, such as Katherine Paterson's Flip-flop Girl. Even though this novel is not as well known as Bridge to Terabithia or Lyddie, this story stands out. Told from the perspective of Vinnie Matthews, a young girl that has just lost her father to cancer, we see her not only struggle with his death, but also reluctantly adjust to a new school. None of these situations are easy, so one feels immediately sympathetic for Vinnie's plight.

Like any other girl, Vinnie wants to fit in, but she finds that she doesn't have the right clothes and her mother can't afford to buy her what she wants. She's frustrated with her little brother, who refuses to speak. Although she can't seem to find any friends in her class, her teacher proves to be a bright spot in her life and she gets to know her classmate, Lupe, who seems to make the best of her situation even though she's worse off than Vinnie.

A friendship develops between the two girls through a mutual understanding of their situations. I think this novel may speak to kids that are currently experiencing loss or financial difficulties in their family. Vinnie has a strong voice and even though she doesn't always make the right decisions, kids may identify with her frustrations and see how she works out her problems even though things are not as perfect in her life as she'd like them to be.

Good, but a little too sad at times. Hard to read about so much hurt.

don't believe in rumers and start not lking some one because of the rumers you hear.

Themes: loss, friendship, poverty

This was definitely not the best book ever written, but it has points which can be deemed worthy of reading. It has good themes of pre-teen/self discovery, sibling rivalry, and friendship.

In a brief look, Vinnie Mathews and he mother and brother move to live with her grandmother after her father passes away. While trying to fit in she develops her first crush.

This was one of my favorite books when I was eleven. I loved Vinnie's sassiness; I was intrigued by Lupe. Fifteen years later, I don't think this book holds up. I didn't realize how whiny Vinnie was, or how much harder she made life for the people around her. The one thing I didn't outgrow was my intrigue for Lupe. It's frustrating to have the best character in the entire book get completely shafted by a very rushed ending that doesn't really resolve anything. Lupe deserved better than Vinnie.