Review: Same Page

 

Same Page

by Elly Swartz

Delacorte Press, 2025

Category: Middle Grade

Reviewer: Stacy Mozer

 

Buy at Bookshop.org

When Bess Stein is elected class president, she is determined to make a positive impact on her school. Her first initiative is to install a book vending machine filled with diverse stories that reflect all the students in her community. However, the machine quickly sparks controversy when some parents label certain books as "dangerous." Leading the charge against it is the mother of a girl Bess once considered a friend. As Bess fights to keep the books accessible, she realizes that changing minds is far more challenging than she expected.

Elly Swartz powerfully captures the harsh reality of book bans happening in schools across the country. The most heartbreaking part of reading this novel is knowing that, in many places, a story like this one could be banned itself.

Like many other Jewish kids, being Jewish is infused in Bess's character. She wears a Jewish star necklace that she often touches at times of stress. Her connection to her recently passed Holocaust survivor grandmother helps shape her thinking and understanding at a middle grade level about the reasons that we cannot forget the past. Kids both Jewish and non-Jewish will connect with the friendship issues and challenges Bess faces in fighting for the right of all books to sit on the shelves.

 

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Reviewer Stacy Mozer a veteran elementary school teacher, currently teaching first grade. In addition to being a teacher, she is an aspiring picture book and middle grade author.