Chloe Stromberg
In Christy Wopat’s recently released middle grade novel, Overruled, she highlights the importance of adults looking beneath the surface when it comes to the behaviors of middle schoolers. Christy also wrote the award-winning memoir, Almost a Mother: Love, Loss, and Finding Your People When Your Baby Dies, and other books on the grieving process.
In her latest book, Overruled, Mac faces the struggle of being consistently labeled as the “bad kid” throughout middle school; he must grapple with false accusations of his behavior and character. One day, his close friend becomes injured at the park and is blamed as a result. Mac makes attempts to prove his innocence through a class mock trial. Overruled explores themes of being put in a box and the consequences of that.
Christy has been an educator for over 20 years and has been able to channel the voices of former students in Overruled. While she is not currently teaching, her 14 years of classroom experience with middle schoolers and fourth graders have given Christy real-life insight into what kids like Mac truly go through. While the character Mac is loosely based on one student in particular, Christy explained that she had many students who struggled to express themselves healthily.
“When I was teaching, I would try to tell the students that all emotions are okay, but you have to show them in the safest way possible.”
“When I was teaching, I would try to tell the students that all emotions are okay,” Christy shared, “but you have to show them in the safest way possible.”
Overruled unpacks the misconceptions about what is really going on when students misbehave. Christy hopes to share a message with adults and teachers about how they handle these situations. She encourages educators to take on a role of curiosity and empathy when it comes to students exhibiting unruly behavior.
“I had this student in my class a bunch of years ago, and the other kids knew that he had this, like, temper and so they would secretly push, and push, and push until he exploded, and then he would get in big trouble. It became kind of like a game for them.”
Christy was disappointed by these dynamics and never forgot them.
“I actually saw it with my own eyes. And I felt so bad for this kid who nobody believed. He was like, ‘they’re doing it to me.’”
When we put labels on kids, it can make them feel that they must adhere to those labels and are unable to break free of them or grow into being their own person. Christy longed to help students in difficult times during her years of teaching, despite the difficulties she faced.
“It’s so hard, but, try to see what’s underneath the behavior,” Christy says. “Because you can get really caught up in just ‘fixing’ the behavior or trying to get the student to conform to what you want. But that’s sort of like, a band-aid, if you don’t really know what is causing it.”
As a teacher, Christy continues to challenge herself to take her own advice. Moreover, she had made the decision to “love every single one of my students even if I didn’t like them very much.”
This improved the way she cared for her students. The careful attention she pays extends to the teaching methods she made available for educators in the process of writing this book. In addition to sharing a compelling story with readers, Overruled also provides educators with a question guide at the end of the book. As Overruled confirms, boxes are meant to be broken.
Make sure to check out Christy’s work and grab a signed copy of Overruled today!