Just Watch Me

Volume XXVII / Issue 14 - December 4 / 2020
Just Watch Me
Just Watch Me
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Just Watch Me

Author: 
Erin Silver
Toronto, ON: Common Deer Press, 2020
125 pp., trade pbk. & ebook, $12.95 (pbk.)
ISBN: 
9781988761541 (pbk.)
9781988761558 (ebook)
Grades: 
Grades 6-9
Ages: 
Ages 11-14
Review by: 
Review by Christina Pike
3
Excerpt: 

My armpits are dripping with sweat. Did I use deodorant today, or even body spray? Very casually, I tilt my nose toward my armpit and take a whiff.

No! I got so caught up playing Rage of War this morning that I forgot. I’ll smell bad on top of everything else. And just how many people have seen my video? I wonder. At last check, there were fourteen likes! The Mendlesons will definitely pick on me when I get to school. Those guys are evil. Best-case scenario: they’ll laugh at me. Worse-case scenario: they’ll tape women’s underwear to my locker. My heart starts to pound even louder.

“Hello? Hello? Earth to Simon.”

“Huh?” I took at Jocelyn as if I’m seeing her for the first time today. Her long, shiny black hair is tied up in a high ponytail. She’s wearing a sleeveless white dress and runners. I can't help but see she has bigger biceps than me. I guess all her mixed martial arts training is paying off.

“I was just asking if you wanted to walk home together after school today, but you’re not listening.”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Erin Silver’s Just Watch Me is about 12-year-old Simon Rosen and his experiences in Technology class with the new class assignment. Instead of a robotics course, Simon’s class is focused on social media, and, in his assignment, he has to live stream on VideoKids channel. There will be only one “A” awarded, and Simon has to get an "A" if his master plan to get his parents back together will work. One video after another is increasingly more embarrassing than the last. It is all unintentional, and the surprising result is that Simon’s classmates believe it is all on purpose.

Just Watch Me is about more than just Simon’s technology class. It is about Simon, his friendships, and his family situation which is falling apart. Simon, like many teens, believes he can save his parents' marriage by getting an "A" and then going to Vancouver for the Video Game Championship for which he has already qualified. This goal is not realistic, but he works towards this even to the extent of jeopardizing his long friendship with Jocelyn who also wants to get an "A". Her reasons focus on proving to her family that she is working hard at school.

Silver has created a very believable character in Simon. His experiences are equally believable. He is a typical tween struggling to get through as his parents' marriage is falling apart and he feels powerless. He is also that “That kid” who is picked on and made fun of constantly. The topic of bullying is also explored bravely in Just Watch Me.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Christina Pike is the Principal of Macdonald Drive Junior High in, St. John’s, Newfoundland.