Ellen Outside the Lines

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Creator: A. J. Sass
LGBTQIA

Winner of a Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor!

A heartfelt novel about a neurodivergent thirteen-year-old navigating changing friendships, a school trip, and expanding horizons for fans of Rain Reign and Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World.

Thirteen-year-old Ellen Katz feels most comfortable when her life is well planned out and people fit neatly into her predefined categories. She attends temple with Abba and Mom every Friday and Saturday. Ellen only gets crushes on girls, never boys, and she knows she can always rely on her best-and-only friend, Laurel, to help navigate social situations at their private Georgia middle school. Laurel has always made Ellen feel like being autistic is no big deal. But lately, Laurel has started making more friends, and cancelling more weekend plans with Ellen than she keeps. A school trip to Barcelona seems like the perfect place for Ellen to get their friendship back on track.
 

Except it doesn't. Toss in a new nonbinary classmate whose identity has Ellen questioning her very binary way of seeing the world, homesickness, a scavenger hunt-style team project that takes the students through Barcelona to learn about Spanish culture and this trip is anything but what Ellen planned.

Making new friends and letting go of old ones is never easy, but Ellen might just find a comfortable new place for herself if she can learn to embrace the fact that life doesn't always stick to a planned itinerary.

 
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# of Pages: 352

Book Binding: Paperback

Year of Publication: 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Language: en

ISBN: 9780759556294

A. J. Sass is an author and clinical psychologist based in the Bay Area of California. They have always been passionate about writing and received a Bachelor's degree in English from Vassar College. After pursuing a career in psychology, Sass returned to their love of writing and completed an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Ellen Outside the Lines is their debut novel, drawing on their experiences working with LGBTQ+ youth and their own journey of self-discovery. Through their writing, Sass hopes to bring more diverse and inclusive representation to the world of children's literature.