about the book
Kissing Tom Lemming will officially make me the second most daring and mature fourth grader in Autumn Grove Intermediate School. The whole class knows about The Kiss which is to take place during today’s recess. My name is Lucy and my bestie, Becky, is the class queen bee. She will kiss Henry and I will kiss Tom. We will be legends!
It goes just as planned, though I nearly back out. A dork distracts our teacher while most of the class witnesses the quick peck on the lips I give to Tom while Becky smashes her face into Henry’s. After it is all over, Henry and Tom give Becky and me adjustable rhinestone rings from the five and dime! It couldn’t have gone better and I revel in the cool factor.
The next few days, though, I have to miss school. My new baby sister, Molly, is born with Down’s syndrome and it throws my whole family into chaos.
When I get back to class, I learn that Tom has broken up with me and I am suddenly lower than dirt! I’m taunted and teased, and even Becky gives me the cold shoulder. I try my best to get back in with the in-crowd but even groveling doesn’t work. Bullied like the rest of the outcasts, I sit by myself at lunch time. My parents are so caught up with Molly I can’t bother them with my problems. But I have had some important revelations about being different, about Molly, and what a joy she is.
I decide to make friends with the only people I can… nose picker April and super quiet Sam. I team up with Sam on a research project about wolves. Learning how these canines live together, I realize a lot about pack mentality. Stronger wolves pin down weaker ones just because they can. Those are the bullies. One wolf is always the scapegoat and sometimes that one will risk everything to fight its way up the hierarchy. That is me.
The question is, can I start my own pack…a pack of dorks that can help me face down these frenemies and bullies?
about the author
Beth Vrabel defines a dork as “someone who isn’t like everyone else and doesn’t try to be.” She thinks that “too many of us spend too much time trying to fit in, to be like everyone else, when what we really want is to stand out. Celebrate what sets you apart! Be a dork!”
Beth grew up in a small paper mill town in Pennsylvania and when she was eight, she wrote her first short story. When she shared the handwritten pages, she was super pleased when her mother said, “One day you’ll get published.” That one moment of kindness and those simple words of encouragement made all the difference in Beth’s life.
In fourth grade, Beth had a really hard time, just like her character Lucy in Pack of Dorks. Her dad was badly injured and needed a long recovery. Beth couldn’t burden her financially and emotionally stressed parents with her own problems. Friends from third grade had abandoned her and teased her about her old clothes. She searched for a place to fit in but never found one. She was an extremely lonely little girl. Turning inward, Beth wrote. She won a short-story contest that year and decided writing was going to be her life’s career.
Beth graduated with a degree in journalism from Pennsylvania State University and went to work for a local newspaper. During the following years, she moved up through the ranks to become a life style columnist and finally editor of two regional magazines.
Later that very difficult fourth grade year would become a powerful inspiration for her first published novel, Pack of Dorks. Her novel A Blink Guide to Stinkville was also inspired by her childhood in a paper mill town and her own daughter, who suffers from a mild form of albinism and is partially blind.
Beth currently lives in Connecticut with a totally wonderful husband, two very charming children, a spoiled rotten puppy dog, and two adorable guinea pigs, Winn-Dixie and Pippin.
Sources:
Author website
Author interview: Huffington Post
Also by Beth Vrabel:
Camp Dorks (Pack of Dorks, Book 2). Sky Pony Press. May 2016.
A Blind Guide to Stinkville. Sky Pony Press. 2015.
read more!
A Blind Guide to Stinkville by Beth Vrabel
Alice, an albino, suffers from near-blindness. However, she never felt disabled until she and her family moved to Sinkville, where people seem only to see her cane and the giant magnifying glass she uses to read. When her parents mention sending her to a school for the blind, Alice rebels and vows to show people that her blindness is not all she is.
The Boy Trap by Nancy Matson
Emma wants to be a scientist, so for the school science fair she decides to do a project to prove empirically that girls are better than boys. Tempers flare when two male classmates set out to prove her wrong. With the help of her very unscientific friend Louise, Emma learns more about herself, about her friends, understanding her biases, and a lot about good research methods.
The Trouble with Rules by Leslie Bullion
The unwritten rule in fourth grade is that girls can’t be friends with boys. Nadia and Nick, next door besties, have to hide their friendship to avoid being badly taunted by their classmates. Then Summer, a new girl, starts competing with class clown Owen and tensions in the classroom rise. After a chain of troublesome events, Nadia decides it is time to break some old rules and come up with a few new ones of her own.