Poison Ivy

A contemporary realistic fiction book that I recently read was Poison Ivy by Amy Koss.  In this book three popular girls, Sophie, Ann, and Benita are on trial for bullying and constantly berating Ivy, who is known throughout the school as Poison Ivy.  I found the girls in this book very similar to the main characters in the movie, Mean Girls.  They are popular and almost everyone in the school wants to be a part of their group, but at the same time almost everyone is afraid of them.  No one wants to do anything to upset them or get on their bad side for fear of being the next one that they choose to humiliate.  This is exactly what happens in the book.  Everyone knows how much the three girls pick on Ivy and call her names, but no one is brave enough to speak up and a few even lie in order to try to get on the girls good side.  I think this book is completely accurate and it is really sad.  Girls can be extremely mean and they don’t even realize how much they can hurt people.  They form cliques and exclude people and hurt people but everyone is trying to get in with the most popular kids.  I remember this from my middle school experience.  I don’t remember the girls being as vicious as the ones portrayed in this book but that may be because I was in the “popular” group and wasn’t on the receiving end most of the time.  I still remember being hurt a fair share of the time because the majority of the girls that were my friends would talk behind my back in a minute.  Unfortunately that is how things were and still are in middle and high school.  It is funny to look back on now and realize how ridiculous it was but at the time fitting in and being cool were extremely important. 

One of the things I enjoyed about this book was that a student stood up for Ivy and decided to tell the truth.  He wasn’t worried about what the popular girls thought and he was willing to stand up for what he thought was right.  There are people who are willing to stand up for others no matter what and this book brought that to light..

Koss, A. G. (2006). Poison Ivy. New Milford, CT: Roaring Brook Press.