Empathy, disability themes in lively middle school tale.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a little
Aven was born without arms, but has an endless supply of imaginative, gory, often hilarious tales about the horrible injury that made her armless. In the past, characters important to the story have disappeared or died, and solving the related mysteries becomes important. Tarantulas, and the gruesome ways they deal with their prey, are a theme. Aven dreams of learning to use nunchakus.
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"Sucks," "boob," "darn." A character with Tourette's says "chicken nipple" a lot. Aven occasionally promises to provide details on how she wipes her butt with no arms, but never does.
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Occasional scene-setting mentions of real brands and products, e.g., Google, Lord of the Rings, X-Men.
Positive Messages
a lot
Accept that your disability is part of who you are, but don't let it define you. Strong messages of loving families who support and look out for each other, and accept their kids for who they are rather than who they wish they'd be. Friendship, empathy, communication, and learning more about each other's situations and lives.
Positive Role Models
a lot
13-year-old Aven is smart, determined, and resourceful in dealing with challenges, from middle school to her own disability. Unlike in some schools, the popular kids are nice to her once they stop staring. Connor is dealing with Tourette syndrome and a lot of people who wish he'd just stop, including his father, who left the family over Connor's outbursts. Zion feels like an outcast because of his weight, but his parents are not only supportive, they're cool nerd gamers. Aven's parents, who adopted her at 2, are determined to raise her to recognize she has a disability, but not let it define her or hold her back. Another adult character takes a protective interest in her family from afar. All three kids form a strong friendship. In the past, unmarried women choose to have and raise kids on their own.
Diverse Representations
some
Aven was born without arms, and her adoptive parents are raising her to be independent. Connor has Tourette syndrome. Zion feels ostracized because of his weight. Subtle Biblical themes, like not hiding your light under a basket, and references to the Queen of Sheba. One of the adults working at the theme park has dementia, and everyone just rolls with it.
Aven and her friends do a lot of research, on Google and elsewhere, as they try to solve a mystery or two related to the theme park. She also writes a blog about her life coping with being armless. She also won't let a friend play an adult video game, and won't do it herself. Lots of details about Tourette syndrome and the different ways it affects people. Lots of info about tarantulas and cacti. Vocabulary-boosting words like "ostracize" and "doppelganger."
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Dusti Bowling's Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus (the title comes from the narrator's sense that a centuries-old cactus probably doesn't worry too much about middle schoolers' lives) is the first of two books featuring spunky redheaded 13-year-old narrator Aven Green, who was born without arms and adopted at age 2 by loving parents who raise her to be strong, independent, and kind. Transplanted to a beat-up Western theme park in Arizona, where her dad has been hired as manager, she misses the friends she's grown up with and dreads the whole business of being stared at in a new place—a subject she knows so well she blogs about it, along with the practical day-to-day details of using your feet to eat, to type, etc. Besides winning friends with her mad soccer skills, she befriends other kids with disabilities and learns more about them. There's a bit of a mystery connected to the theme park, tarantulas, and an old photo of a girl who looks just like Aven, and a lot of kind, supportive people on hand as she and her new friends unravel it all. Mild language ("sucks," "darn," discussion of how you wipe your butt when you don't have arms).
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What's the Story?
INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF A CACTUS finds 13-year-old Aven Green transplanted to Arizona, thanks to her dad's new job at a Western theme park. She's missing her friends, her home, and her old life—and really dreading having to start middle school on a huge campus full of strangers. All of which would be plenty to deal with, but Aven, born without arms, has been on the receiving end of a lot of bad manners and had to deal with a lot of unusual difficulties over the years, and she's not looking forward to another round of it.
"From the time I was little, my parents had trained me to be an extreme problem-solver—like a problem-solving ninja. Even when it took me an hour to get a bathing suit on once when I was eight, they still hadn't done it for me. And I never had trouble getting my bathing suit on again. They were determined I would grow up to be a totally self-sufficient, problem-solving expert. I only wished I could solve the problem of how to make friends in a sea of kids who thought I was a freak."
There's lots to like about Dusti Bowling's resourceful redheaded narrator, born with no arms, adopted by parents who refused to let disability define her, and coping with middle school in a new town. Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus offers a lot of relatable emotion—and also a lot of insight into the practical details of living with disabilities, like using your feet to eat, knit, and play guitar, or trying not to make socially inappropriate outbursts in public when you have Tourette syndrome. The balance between storytelling (a mystery at a dusty theme park, and the friends trying to solve it) and disability issues (about which the narrator has a breezy blog) is a little uneasy sometimes, but a lot of kids dealing with disabilities, and the people who care about them, will feel seen and appreciated here.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about stories like InsignificantEvents in the Life of a Cactus, with central characters dealing with a disability and going about their lives. Are there any stories like this where the character is doing a really impressive job of coping with the challenges—and maybe even taking advantage of them?
Are you or a friend or family member dealing with a condition that just makes something extra difficult in ways that people don't often recognize? What's going on, and how might you get support if you need it?
What would you find most scary about having to go to a new school in a strange town where you didn't know anyone?
Available on:
Paperback, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Last updated:
July 31, 2024
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Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus: Life of a Cactus, Book 1
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