It All Begins With Jelly Beans

 By: Nova Weetman

Location: FIC WEE

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Mental Health

Two girls form an unlikely friendship during their shared time in the school nurse’s office in this heartfelt middle grade novel for fans of Save Me a Seat and Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus.

Meg spends her days hoping no one thinks too hard about why she wears the same t-shirt and slippers to school every day. Luckily, the nurse’s office provides a welcome escape from classmates who don’t understand…and snacks when food runs out at home.

Riley knows fitting in at her new school would be a lot easier if her friends were more understanding of her type 1 diabetes. So she keeps her testing under wraps…and an emergency bag of jelly beans on hand.

When Meg and Riley end up together in the nurse’s office one day, both girls think they’ve worked each other out, but what if they’ve got it all wrong? On the brink of moving on to junior high, Riley and Meg must find the courage to discover who they really want to be. And maybe a bag of shared jelly beans will provide all the help they need.

Review by Julianna

Why are they in Sick Bay? Well -they each have their reasons.

Ever since Meg’s Dad died and her mother is consumed by a deep depression Meg goes to sick bay to get fed by office lady, Sarah, and has time out with her two emotional crutches – a brown paper bag for breathing into and her well-thumbed copy of Anne of Green Gables.
Riley is new to the school and is type 1 diabetic and hates the monitoring it requires – especially how that impacts on her ability to hang out with her new friends. But if her friends don’t understand her diabetes are they really friends?
It’s the end of grade six and so much is about to change. Both girls are caught in a gap between their home lives and school lives, their truths and their lies. Maybe it is only in sick bay that you can truly be yourself?
Nova Weetman is a writer of incredible sensitivity. She mines emotional gems from even the most gentle of moments and does so with such authenticity it makes your heart pound. With each chapter from the alternate girl’s POV, the plot is absorbing as we see how these two lives intersect as they head towards grade six graduation and finding the strength to be themselves.
Even thinking about it gives me goosebumps. Oh my heart!