A podcast interview with Barbara Dee on The Growing Readers Podcast, a production of The Children’s Book Review.
Critically acclaimed author Barbara Dee delves into her latest middle-grade novel, Unstuck!
Listeners are treated to a sneak peek into this novel that follows protagonist Lyla as she grapples with anxiety, writer’s block, and the pressures of meeting a writing contest deadline while trying to rescue her older sister, Dahlia, both on and off the page.
Barbara Dee’s insightful discussion offers aspiring writers and readers alike a glimpse into the creative process and the power of storytelling to tackle real-life issues with empathy and heart. Tune in to this enlightening episode for a behind-the-scenes look at Unstuck and Barbara’s journey as a middle-grade author.
Barbara Dee Talks About:
- Her passion for writing books for middle schoolers and how she draws from her own emotional memories to create authentic stories that resonate with young readers.
- How the genesis of Unstuck was sparked by kids’ questions about writer’s block during school visits and in emails.
- The importance of addressing emotional struggles in her work.
- How themes of friendship, sisterhood, and breaking free from preconceptions are woven throughout the book.
- The importance of writing from the heart and authenticity in character dialogue—emphasizing the need for different levels of speech to sound authentic for each character.
- Being open to trying different solutions when facing creative struggles, whether it’s writer’s block or navigating the complexities of middle school friendships.
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Read the Trascription
Bianca Schulze
Hello, Barbara. Welcome to the Growing Readers podcast.
Barbara Dee
Hi. It’s great to be here.
Bianca Schulze
Oh my gosh. I have to say that your latest novel, Unstuck, has resonated deeply with me for a few reasons. One as a reader, another as a writer, but the other as a parent because I felt as though you must have been hiding out in my house this past year. I have three kids, but your book references some sisters; one is in middle school and a senior. And that’s exactly what is happening in my house: college applications and all that sort of stuff. We have just come out on the other side with some college acceptances.
Barbara Dee
Woohoo. Congratulations to the whole family.
Bianca Schulze
I know, but. So, we will go deeper into the book in a minute. But I just had to say that. Are you sure you weren’t hiding in my house?
Barbara Dee
I am the mom of three kids, all of whom applied to college at various times. So, I know how stressful it is not just for the kid who’s applying but for the younger siblings as well. So, that was one of the things that I explored in Unstuck. Because in Unstuck, the main character is writing a fantasy novel for her 7th-grade Ela class, and she’s experiencing a certain kind of writer’s block. But her older sister, who is applying to college, is experiencing a different sort of writer’s block as she’s writing her college essay. So, there are two kinds of writer’s block that are going on in sort of a parallel way in the book.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah. Oh my gosh, it’s done so well. We’re going to dive into the heart of the story in a moment. But I always love to, when I have someone on as a first-time guest, find out what it is that drives you and guides you in creating books for children in the first place. So let us know.
Barbara Dee
Well, I really like kids in this age group. I know sometimes people think, oh, middle schoolers are so evil and difficult, but I think they’re fascinating. And I have a very strong sense of how I was when I was this age. I can dip into my twelve-year-old self very easily, maybe a little bit too easily. I noticed that a lot of the things that I felt when I was twelve are kind of universal. And even though kids these days are very different from how I was when I was twelve, I didn’t have Internet, for example. I think a lot of the emotions are the same. So, I don’t necessarily use things from my past specific details, but I do tap into those emotional memories a lot, and I think kids can still relate to those things today.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of just writing and reading kids’ books, do you believe that somebody who writes books needs to be a reader first?
Barbara Dee
Absolutely. I was the kind of kid whose face was always in a book. I was the kind of kid whose mom always said, stop reading, go outside and play. But my great love was books. However, paradoxically, I think one of the reasons that the main character in Unstuck gets stuck is that she’s a voracious reader and she reads a lot of fantasy novels, and she feels as if anything she writes has to be worthy of all the books that she’s read. So sometimes, kids who are the most voracious readers are the ones who feel sort of overwhelmed when they’re sitting down to write something themselves. That was one of the conflicts that I was writing about in this book. Yeah, actually.
Bianca Schulze
And I have to draw the parallel back to your main character as well as why I thought maybe you had been in my house, is that my middle schooler is ours. I mean, she just loves to write. She writes and writes. When we did online learning through the pandemic, instead of participating in some of the other classes, she was just off in her world writing stories.
And I think by the time they went back to school, and she was in fourth grade, there was an aide in the classroom helping, and she took my daughter’s writing to the teacher and basically said, I think she’s plagiarized this. I don’t think this can be a fourth grader’s writing because not only does she just love to write, and she’s a good writer, but it was just so long, and there was so much of it that they just didn’t believe it came from a fourth grader. And so that’s another reason why I thought maybe you had been hiding in my house.
Barbara Dee
Some kids just have to write. They’re very much in their heads. Their imaginations are very developed. And sometimes those kids have a difficult time getting their imaginations on paper. That’s what happens in Unstuck. But other kids can just do it, and they just can’t stop. And we need to honor both of those kids, the ones who are the great readers and the ones who are the great writers. And sometimes it’s the same kids, and sometimes it isn’t.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s really dig into Unstuck. Let’s start with that classic question. Where did the idea for the story come from?
Barbara Dee
Well, I do a lot of school visits. And every time I do a school visit, one kid, at least one kid, will raise his or her hand and ask, how do you deal with writer’s block? So, I was starting to realize that this was something that a lot of kids were thinking about. And I was also getting a lot of emails from kids saying, I am writing a book that’s going to be a series, and I’m stuck on page six. How do you get through that? Do you have any pointers for me?
So, I was starting to realize that this was a topic that kids were really interested in. The whole concept of writing anxiety also sort of dovetails with academic pressure in an interesting way and all the pressures that kids feel, all the other ways that they get stuck because they get stuck socially, too. And so, I like to write books about kids who are experiencing something emotionally and working through it and coming out the other side. Those are the inspirations for the book.
Bianca Schulze
Well, also, what I love about it is not all kids love to read nonfiction. And you could have just as easily created a nonfiction book for the middle grade reader that was on becoming Unstuck and writer’s block and finding ideas and inspiration. So the way that you’ve magically sort of woven this into a fictional story, I think, is genius because, like I said, not everyone’s going to pick up a nonfiction book, but here they’re going to be appeased by the story, and it’s so relatable, they’re going to feel seen in it, and they’re going to learn as well, but unknowingly. So, tell me maybe about some of the struggles you had while creating the story, because like I said, anyone who reads from this is going to learn about becoming Unstuck and how they, too, can become Unstuck. But sorry, Barbara, my question, I’m going to start that one again.
Barbara Dee
Take as much time as you need.
Bianca Schulze
So, this could have just as easily been a nonfiction book. I mean, there are so many tips hidden in this story about how to become Unstuck and release from your writer’s block. So, tell me maybe about some of the struggles you had in creating a story that is so fictional and beautiful that readers maybe aren’t even going to notice that they’re learning on the way.
Barbara Dee
Well, I write what sometimes people call tough topics. I write about things like sexual harassment in middle school. My best-known book is called maybe he just likes you. I’ve written about addiction, mental illness, and eating disorders, and I write about difficult topics. But the way that I do it is always by incorporating stories and plotlines about family, about friendships, and school because I think that no kid’s life is just about one thing. So, when you incorporate these other elements, it becomes a more realistic story. It’s more three-dimensional, richer, and more fun for the kid because you can layer in humor.
And so, writing about writer’s block, for me, I was still incorporating all those other elements because I like a book that has many different levels to it so that a kid who’s reading it isn’t just reading topic, topic, topic, it’s just more fun for the reader, I think. And it just makes a more authentic experience.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. Well, at its core, Unstuck is about. Now, I want to make sure I pronounce it. You say Lyla, right? Yes. So Unstuck is about Lyla, who loves to read and write like we’ve said, but she’s stuck, and she has writer’s block. It’s a story that also serves as an anecdote for how to write a story. And you’ve managed, know, just weave in really amazing themes, like you were just saying, of friendship, their sisterhood.
And this part I loved is the importance of really getting to know someone, as in listening and paying attention to one another, as in, do you know someone, or do you really know someone? So, I just found your ability to intertwine these themes just absolutely masterful. Like, you’re so good at it.
Barbara Dee
Thank you.
Bianca Schulze
So why don’t we talk about how you see these themes connected to Lyla’s creative struggles in this?
Barbara Dee
You know, one of the things that you just mentioned is getting to know someone. One of the plots in Unstuck is that she sort of inherits this kid at school who’s like the weird kid that everyone has decided is the weird kid, and they’ve labeled her. And Lyla’s story, the fantasy story that she’s trying to write, is about how kids get labeled.
In the fantasy story, some kids get assigned scribe and, other kids get assigned vanguard, and the main character’s sister gets assigned vanguard. And the scribe younger sister has to save the vanguard. But in the fantasy story that she’s writing, she’s working out how these labels are sort of randomly assigned and unfair. And that really is what’s happening socially in her middle school, in real life. And the more that Lyla gets to know this girl Journey, the more she realizes that she’s the true friend, not the friend that Lyla is drifting away from, the former best friend.
But Journey brings a lot to the table and is a great listener and gives her writing great feedback and is loyal and is there for her emotionally when she needs, you know, in real life. Lyla has to get past her preconceptions about this weird girl, and she also admires the way that this weird girl, Journey, has a real affinity for animals and, collects animals and understands them intuitively. And she thinks how when you’re creating a story, that’s what you’re trying to do, too. You’re trying to get inside a character’s head, just like Journey is trying to get inside the head and the way of thinking of her animals.
So, there’s a lot going on there, but I write about this a lot in my books. The way that kids at this age can be very judgmental. Middle schoolers can be very judgmental of their classmates. And a lot of the plots, in a very sort of macro way, are about getting over those preconceptions and learning not to be so judgmental.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m right in the thick of the whole middle school for the second time right now. And I found the way you write your characters; you said you grew up in a stage where you didn’t have Internet, but yet the way you write these characters is that you really do understand and you really do know, and I do believe that the middle schoolers that read this book are going to really feel seen in this and it’s going to help them piece a few things together with their own friendships.
A lot of times, like what happens to the characters in your school is when they leave their elementary school and they go to their middle school based on their zip code or even one block over, friends get diverted to different middle schools, and you’re in this spot where your best friend’s over here, and you’re over there, and they’re making new friends. I just think that the way you have written this, and I’m going to probably say this word ten times today, it’s so relatable. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind sharing a highlight from the story or a favorite.
Barbara Dee
Oh, at one point, Lyla goes to the library as a sort of retreat. Her teacher encourages her to change locations when she’s struggling with her writing in the classroom. And she goes to the library, and she picks up a book, and she says something to the effect of, and I don’t have it right in front of me, that reading is a kind of disappearing and writing is a kind of appearing. And then she says, what if I’m better at disappearing?
I think about that a lot, how when you’re reading, you can sort of disappear into the pages, and that’s a really healthy thing. But at a certain point when you’re writing, you’re sort of coming up to the surface, and you have to share yourself another quote from the book. The most important piece of advice I think that her teacher gives her is write your feelings. And that really connects with Lyla. Miss Bowman suggests other things, too, that really don’t work, other strategies that don’t really work. But when she tells her write your feelings, it’s known a light bulb goes off in Lyla’s head, and she’s able to put herself in the position of her character, and words start to come. So, write your feelings would also be something I would want kids to come away with.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, I love that. I actually have a little author presentation that I do myself about where my ideas come from. Which, in a sense, is where your ideas come from is, helping you become unstuck in your process. And I talk a lot about your senses and emotions, and when you tap into those, and even if you’re writing a story about your favorite pet or just tapping into an emotion that you understand and giving that trait to the character is such a helpful tool for them to be.
Barbara Dee
And, you know, one of the things I was thinking about Lyla was that one of her problems was that she was writing from her head and not from her heart. And once she starts writing from her heart, things just open up for her.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. You’re so clever, Barbara. So, one of my favorite things about this story is how you have woven in all the incredible books that Lyla reads. Know, it’s like you’re surreptitiously giving readers tips on what they could read mean, that just makes my book heart just happy. So, I have to imagine that was deliberate, that you were planting those seeds.
Barbara Dee
Well, I used to be an English teacher. A million years ago, I was a high school English teacher. So, I’m always trying to get kids reading other books. I wrote my book Star Crossed as a way of trying to get kids to read Romeo and Juliet. So, I’m still trying to do that. You know, the funny thing about the books that I recommend in Unstuck, I write realistic fiction, and I don’t naturally gravitate toward fantasy novels. They’re not the first books that I would pick up or choose when I go to the library.
So, to do the research for this book, I had to read a whole bunch of fantasy novels that I wouldn’t have read otherwise. And I loved them. I had the best time that was my research for the book. So, I used some of the titles that were my favorites because I needed to read the books that Lyla would have read and then that she was thinking about almost too much, and she even tells herself at one— I know that I’m in 7th grade, I’m not competing with Rick Reardon and I’m not Kelly Barnhill. Nobody expects me to be Lord of the Rings, but still, I want to write something really.
Bianca Schulze
Just the book list there. I don’t know if you have that online, on your website, or anything like that, but do you have it on there?
Barbara Dee
No, but I should, right?
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, you should have a little like a downloadable PDF list with Unstuck for the realistic fiction. And then here’s your fantasy list. It was such a great book list. Also, we want people to read the book to find out what your book suggestions are too. So, it’s like, do we want to make it that easy? I don’t know.
I have to read a paragraph that, from my perspective as a book reviewer, just made me laugh out loud. I’m just going to pull it up. Here’s okay, so I have an advanced reader copy, but it’s on page 136, which is the chapter titled Sides. So, it says:
At lunch, Journey is picking at her veggie wrap. At first, I don’t notice that she isn’t eating because I’m still thinking about Ela, especially the free writing I just did. I mean, I have to admit it felt good when Ms. Bowman gave me a thumbs up. But of course, the thumbs up was just for moving my pen. And when you read a book, you never say to yourself, well, this book sucked, but look at all the typing that author did. Woohoo for word barf.
Barbara Dee
There are those memories. So, you get a list of previous posts that you made in years past. And the one that came up for today was from a girl who identified herself as twelve going on 13, who said that when she’s stuck. This was from three years ago. She wrote to me, and she said, what do you do when you’re stuck? I do something I call word vomit, and I just write everything really fast. And I don’t care about punctuation or spelling or characters appearing and disappearing and huge plot holes. I just barf it all out on the page. And I used that. I remembered that, and I used that. It’s a disgusting expression, but it’s so apt, isn’t it?
Bianca Schulze
It really is. I love that you remembered that, and you put that in the book, and that it just happened to be your memory today as well. That’s funny how that turns out. I was recently interviewing Kate di Camillo, and there was an article that had been written about the slippers that she wears. So, I asked her, what are these amazing slippers? So, she went and got them, and it turned out they were the exact slippers I was wearing on my feet. So, I love little moments like that.
Barbara Dee
That’s amazing to be in.
Bianca Schulze
Know. I mean, I mean, literally, that would be amazing. So, let’s take a second right now to give a shout-out to Erica Pajarillo’s fantastic jacket illustration. It just captures the eye immediately; I think when I first received an email about Unstuck, I’m not even sure what it was because I get so many emails every day about so many different books, and it’s hard to read all the way to the bottom. And your cover, I think, stole my eyes from even finishing the email to start with. I was reading it, and then my eyes just jumped to that beautiful cover, and then I obviously went back and read it. I’m like, yes, we have to have Barbara on the show about this book, but talk to me about what you think about the cover. I love this cover.
Barbara Dee
I think it’s gorgeous. And this artist, Erica Pajarillo, is the same artist as the one who did my covers for Maybe He Just Likes You, Violets are Blue, and Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet. And I love all of them. They’re just spectacular.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, she does a beautiful job, I think. I was on your website yesterday, and all of those covers just lined up together and looked so good. There’s, I guess, like that modern element to them, but somehow also classy and classic at the same time. I don’t know how she does that.
Barbara Dee
And they’re emotional. They’re all emotional. I mean, I see the cover of Unstuck just draws you into the character’s thought process.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah.
Barbara Dee
And the cover for Maybe He Just Likes You is just so dramatic and confrontational. I think she has an uncanny ability to do something beautiful but also emotional and evocative of the story.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah. I think when it comes to a middle grade novel, I mean, yours has a little bit of pretty spot art throughout, too, which is lovely.
Barbara Dee
Yes.
Bianca Schulze
But you really only have that cover to appeal to somebody who’s perhaps more visual in terms of what they gravitate towards when they’re picking up a book. And I think you nailed it when you said that they’re emotional. When you see Lyla’s profile on that cover and, you wonder, what is she thinking about?
Barbara Dee
Yeah. Yeah.
Bianca Schulze
Well, I have to ask this question. Do you ever get stuck and have writer’s block? Barbara? And if so, what do you do to become Unstuck?
Barbara Dee
Well, the only time I had writer’s block for any extended period of time was when I was writing my second book, Solving Zoe, because, you know, my first book had done pretty well. And I thought, okay, well, my second book has to do even better. And I thought one way to make it better was to do all of this research. And I spent a lot of time researching various esoteric topics. And then I thought, well, the more I research, the more I need to research. And by the time I was ready to write, I just felt so burdened by all that research, and I felt sort of like an imposter. I wasn’t really a writer.
And then the way that I got through that was by using that feeling as the main character’s feeling. So again, I was writing my feelings, and that was how I broke through that bit of writer’s block. I haven’t had a bout of writer’s block as serious as that for a very long time. But I certainly have days when I’m not productive. And one of the things I like to tell kids is that sometimes, when you have a day when all you’ve produced is a negative word count, a day when all you’ve spent doing nothing but deleting, that’s actually productive. That’s actually the opposite of an unproductive day because you’re refining your writing by taking things out. So, you shouldn’t worry about word count.
When I am stuck now when I have days when even the deleting isn’t really happening, one of the things I like to do is read screenplays and scripts of my favorite TV shows and movies. Because I’m sure you’ve noticed a lot of my books are about dialogue. I like to write how kids talk. And when I read screenplays, it sort of reminds me about how characters speak. When I read good screenplays, I can hear those voices, especially if it’s a movie or a TV show that I know really well. I can hear the actor’s voice, and I could see it on the page, and it just sort of resets my brain. So that’s one of my little tricks.
Bianca Schulze
When it comes to writing dialogue, do you have any tips for just adding dialogue? I mean, obviously, I do a lot of reading, and I think some people do dialogue really well, and others maybe struggle with it a little bit. So, do you have any great tips for when you are writing dialogue and how to really stay in a character’s voice? And obviously, when you’re an adult writing for children, I think sometimes this is where I notice it. You’re like, no, this dialogue feels more like an adult’s voice. Exactly. What are your tips?
Barbara Dee
Well, I think you just hit it right on the head. Kids need to sound like kids, and grown-ups need to sound like grown-ups. And not every grown-up sounds the same. Teachers, for example, sound different from parents. Grandparents sound different from parents. Kids need to sound like their age. So, an older sibling needs to sound like a teen, and a younger sibling needs to sound younger. So, not all kids sound the same. Friends talk differently to each other than they talk to adults. So, if you have a scene where kids are sitting around the lunch table and bantering, that’s one kind of kids speak. But another kind of kids speak is when the kid has to say why she doesn’t have her homework assignment for her teacher.
So, you need to have different levels of speech, many different levels of speech in your book, and that’s one way that it will sound authentic.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, absolutely. I love the way you just described that. Well, I would love to know if there’s anything about Unstuck that maybe we haven’t really touched on that you would really like listeners to know about. Is there anything that you want to add about Unstuck? The characters, the plot?
Barbara Dee
Well, Unstuck has my favorite teacher character that I’ve ever written, Miss Bowman. I think she’s really cool, and I love the way that she supports Lyla in a very unintrusive way, and she’s very open-minded. She’s always coming up with new approaches, but she doesn’t crowd Lyla, and she makes it clear that she’s interested in Lyla not just as a writer but as a person. And she understands that what Lyla is going through as a person is not unrelated to what she’s going through as a writer. But she doesn’t demand that Lyla open up to her. She gets her, too, eventually.
And I just wanted to say that there are lots of different pieces of advice given to Lyla throughout the book, much of it by Ms. Bowman, and it’s collected in the back of the book. There’s a section in the back of the book called 25 Ways to Get Unstuck. So, we were talking before about how this is not nonfiction, but for those people who want a list of 25 things you can do when you get stuck, you can flip to the back of the book.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah, I definitely am going to keep that page bookmarked for myself. I loved all those little tips. Actually, you just touched on something that I would love to do. So, you talked about just a second ago with the dialogue and how there isn’t just one way that somebody communicates and talks. Just because you’re the same age, you’re not going to communicate the same way, and even the same person is going to converse differently with their friends versus their teacher and their parents.
Well, in terms of character development, I think you just highlighted something for me that I think I noticed, but just, it really came to the forefront of my mind, as you were saying that Ms. Bowman really gave Lyla the space. She would give her feedback, but she wasn’t kind of cramming it and enforcing that this is what she must do. It was just, here’s some advice. And she gave her the space to figure out what worked for her.
Now, we haven’t really touched on Dahlia, the older sister, a whole lot in this conversation because I feel like this would be just, I mean, we’d be talking for another hour, which I would be so happy to do. But Dahlia is struggling with writing her essay, and the people who are offering her advice are her parents, and they are not giving Dahlia the same amount of space that Lyla is receiving from her parents. And so that contrast is actually really great to see. Parents always want the best for their kids, but sometimes, we just don’t allow our kids the space to figure it out for themselves, too. We’re like, here’s the advice. Now. Show me that you’re going to do it. Do it now. So, I love that that is in the story.
Barbara Dee
And the parents are good parents. They’re incredibly good parents in a lot of ways. And when they finally understand what Dahlia is going through, they couldn’t possibly be more supportive. But at first, they are in the mindset that, oh, God, I know I was in as the parent, especially of my oldest kid, when he was applying to college. You’re so frantic. You want the kid to do themselves justice, to make those deadlines, to get into the college of their choice. It seems like it’s the most important thing in the child’s life up to that point, and you kind of lose perspective.
And some kids, especially a kid like Dahlia, who’s a very intense kid who’s always identified herself as a superstar student, some kids crash and burn in their senior years in high school. I’ve seen that happen a little bit too often, and I hadn’t read a book about a younger sibling’s perspective on that, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write this book because when the oldest kid goes through something traumatic and important, like applying to college, the whole family goes through it, including the younger siblings who are taking notes, by the way. Absolutely.
Bianca Schulze
I’m afraid of the notes my daughter has taken over this past year. And to circle back to what again? I mean, anyone listening, I mean, Barbara absolutely nailed this. I lived this experience. I’m so your book was, I mean, it was so great. And I can’t wait to have a physical copy that popped right on my daughter’s nightstand my middle schooler, because she’s going to love it. She’s going to feel so seen. Well, I would love to know what the most important takeaway is that you would love the Growing Readers listeners to gain from our conversation today.
Barbara Dee
The most important takeaway, I think, is that there isn’t one solution. If you have something like writer’s block, there are so many different strategies to try. And some will work for you, and some won’t, and you should just be open. And most importantly, talk to people. Don’t stay tangled up in your own head. Figure out who you can talk to. Listen to feedback and be open to trying different sorts of solutions.
Bianca Schulze
Yeah. Very wise words. Well, Barbara, I used the word masterful before, and I’m going to stick with that one today. You’re a masterful storyteller.
Barbara Dee
Thank you.
Bianca Schulze
Unstuck. You’re welcome. Unstuck validates the things children care about and worry about, and it will certainly spark many meaningful conversations with young readers and writers and a few older ones like so. Lyla’s journey mirrors the importance of understanding and listening to one another, which are vital elements in both creative writing and also personal relationships. So, thank you for writing this book and thank you so much for being on the.
Barbara Dee
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
About the Book
Publisher’s Book Summary: From critically acclaimed author Barbara Dee comes a middle grade novel about a girl whose struggles with anxiety and writer’s block set off unexpected twists and turns, both on and off the page.
Lyla is thrilled when her seventh-grade English language arts class begins a daily creative writing project. For the past year, she’s been writing a brilliant fantasy novel in her head, and here’s her chance to get it on paper! The plot to Lyla’s novel is super complicated, with battle scenes and witches and a mysterious one-toed-beast, but at its core, it’s about an overlooked girl who has to rescue her beautiful, highly accomplished older sister.
But writing a fantasy novel turns out to be harder than simply imagining one, and pretty soon, Lyla finds herself stuck, experiencing a panic she realizes is writer’s block. Part of the problem is that she’s trying to impress certain people—like Rania, her best friend who’s pulling away, and Ms. Bowman, the coolest teacher at school. Plus, there’s the pressure of meeting the deadline for the town writing contest. A few years ago, Lyla’s superstar teen sister Dahlia came in second, and this time, Lyla is determined to win first prize.
Finally, Lyla confides about her writing problems to Dahlia, who is dealing with her own academic stress as she applies to college. That’s when she learns Dahlia’s secret, which is causing a very different type of writer’s block. Can Lyla rescue a surprisingly vulnerable big sister, both on the page and in real life?
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Show Notes
Barbara Dee is the author of fourteen middle-grade novels, including Unstuck, Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet, Violets Are Blue, My Life in the Fish Tank, Maybe He Just Likes You, Everything I Know About You, Halfway Normal, and Star-Crossed. Her books have earned several starred reviews and have been named to many best-of lists, including The Washington Post’s Best Children’s Books, the ALA Notable Children’s Books, the ALA Rise: A Feminist Book Project List, the NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, and the ALA Rainbow List Top Ten. Barbara lives with her family, including a naughty cat named Luna and a sweet rescue hound named Ripley, in Westchester County, New York.
For more information, visit https://barbaradeebooks.com/.
Thank you for listening to the Growing Readers Podcast episode: Breaking Through Writer’s Block: A Journey with Barbara Dee into Unstuck. For the latest episodes from The Growing Readers Podcast, Subscribe or Follow Now.
