Save Me A Seat

Save Me A Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan

Five paw prints

It's the first week of school and Joe and Ravi are both experiencing big changes.  Joe is starting without his best friend because his friend moved out of state. Joe is very smart but most of the kids in the class don’t know this and make fun of him because of his special needs.  Ravi just moved to the United States from India because of his father's new job.  Ravi was considered one of the smartest and most popular kids in his school in India and he wants this to continue in America.  Joe and Ravi don’t know it but they have something in common and his name is Dillon.  Dillon is in class with Joe and Ravi.  Joe knows all about Dillon and knows to avoid Dillon as much as possible.  Ravi is about to learn more than he wants about Dillon.  But is Ravi willing to listen to Joe to survive the new year?   I really like this book and the way it handled bullying at the elementary level.  I especially like that the book goes back and forth between the “voices” of Joe and Ravi throughout the book.  My elementary school usually uses The Bystander by James Preller to teach the older students about bullying but now that the middle schools are using it as part of their curriculum we need to find a new book.  Save Me A Seat is the perfect replacement and it will work so much better in my school.  To find more books by Sarah Weeks visit http://www.sarahweeks.com to learn more.  Unfortunately Gita Varadarajan doesn’t have a website yet (since this is her first book) but she does have a twitter site.  With a parent or guardian's permission you can visit https://twitter.com/gitavarad1.  To learn more about what to do if you are bullied or want to help someone who is being bullied visit http://cbs6albany.com/community/be-an-ally or http://newyork.adl.org/noplaceforhate/?_ga=1.221705818.319021253.1473263972 ( this is the program that our school district uses) or http://www.thebullyproject.com/.