Dress Coded: a middle school Me Too tale

Dress Coded, a middle school-based novel by Carrie Firestone, ticks all of the right coming of age boxes for adolescents: friendship issues, family problems, romantic uncertainties, raging against unfair rules at school.  Only this story is told through a series of podcast episodes, lists, letters, and prose from one character's perspective, Molly. 

 Molly is about to graduate from middle school and the biased treatment that she witnesses her friends receive daily at the hands of the school administration based on what they wear to school causes her to take action.  She starts a podcast where students, both past and current, who have been affected by the school's dress code policy share their stories.  They find strength in one another and use that bond to strive to change the rules.  

Although Molly hasn't been called out for her wardrobe, she can empathize with her friends' ongoing treatment because her own older brother has been belittling her for years.  Will Molly learn to face her own family issues while attempting to help the next wave of students entering middle school?

This is an important book for young people to read, as well as educators.  As a teacher myself, I forget sometimes how it feels to be a young person.  Building relationships with students as individuals is more important than teaching content because if the students don't know that you care about them and their lives, they won't bother learning from you.  

Dress Coded is a great pick for a book club due to the various topics Firestone weaves into the story:  vaping, drifting friendships, identity, gender issues, self-esteem and using your voice all are factors that drive the story forward.  With social media being increasingly accessible, too, this opens up a lot of conversations about what consequences come with having that readily available audience.  It is a tool that can help or harm so the choices that Molly and her friends make throughout the course of the book can be debated.  That is the beauty of stories, they get better when you hear other people's interpretation of them!