It reminded me of the book "Counting By 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Both books handled with loss and genius outcast girls. Both books randomly spit out science facts at every corner but made it work for the story. Spineless is a great introduction to the world of jellyfish. Going into this book, I knew only what Finding Nemo taught me and the moon jellies I saw in Virginia Beach. Ali Benjamin (2015). "Interview With Ali Benjamin - 2015 National Book Award Finalist, Young People's Literature" (Interview). Interviewed by Tim Manley. National Book Foundation . Retrieved 10 June 2018.

The Thing About Jellyfish is a great story for older children, young teenagers, and it seems this 37 year old girl very much enjoyed it too. Problem was these signs weren't incorporated the way a person with autism would act. For example, Suzy chooses not to speak for a time and has a very logical reason why she chooses to be silent. Someone on the spectrum may be selectively mute but its not for some "reason." If they are selectively mute its not something that they choose to do and not do. It's about comfort level. It's organic. The way The Thing About Jellyfish portrays selective mutism in autistic children is how you would imagine a child without autism would choose to be silent. And once I did, the very next day at the literary fiction writer-friend's bookstore she owns with her poet-husband, I could not put it down. The Thing About Jellyfish is the heartrending tale of Suzy Swanson, a little girl who just encountered the Worst Thing: death. To make sense of her grief, Suzy turns to the wonders of the universe and the dazzling expanse of her imagination. Middle School years are challenging years for kids. My own 34year old daughter says they were the most painful years of her life. -- we've read books on the theme before about 'The awkward years'.... Or 'the bully'...,, or 'friendships falling apart' ....... But you've never read any of them that with the marvels of the jellyfish. You'll be surprised how much you'll learn...'fascinating'!!! You'll read about the scientists

It’s a story that warrants repeated readings, for entertainment and to appreciate the small but mighty hero Jellyfish. Hannah Taylor-Rose, Magpies Every year, more people are reading our articles to learn about the challenges facing the natural world. Our future depends on nature, but we are not doing enough to protect our life support system. Pollution has caused toxic air in our cities, and farming and logging have wreaked havoc on our forests. Climate change is creating deserts and dead zones, and hunting is driving many species to the brink of extinction. This is the first time in Earth's history that a single species - humanity - has brought such disaster upon the natural world. But if we don't look after nature, nature can't look after us. We must act on scientific evidence, we must act together, and we must act now.

I liked the narrative voice, and at first I was intrigued by the connections drawn to jellyfish. But there were a LOT of jellyfishy facts, and I kept wondering why I didn't feel anything for this story of a girl who's so traumatized by her former best friend's death that she will no longer speak. The species T. dohrnii was first described by scientists in 1883. It was 100 years later, in the 1980s, that their immortality was accidentally discovered. By now I was twelve years old and starting my second year of middle school. I knew a few things about grown-ups. And here’s one of the things I knew: Grown-ups are like everybody else—they don’t actually want you to say what you’re thinking. T. dohrnii is sensitive, making it also difficult to rear in a lab for studies. But despite the challenges, one scientist is known to have had long-term success with captive immortal jellyfish. The Thing About Jellyfish is a heartfelt and touching story of grief, acceptance, friendship, family and fitting in. A profound novel with a plausible voice of a girl who grieved of her loss and sought for the answers at the same time.

Best Books 2015, Middle Grade: The Thing About Jellyfish". Best Books 2015. School Library Journal . Retrieved 10 June 2018. Jellyfish, with their undulating umbrella-shaped bells and sprawling tentacles, are as fascinating and beautiful as they are frightening and dangerous. They are found in every ocean at every depth, and they are the oldest multi-organed life form on the planet, having inhabited the ocean for more than five hundred million years. In many places they are also vastly increasing in number, and these population blooms may be an ominous indicator of the rising temperatures and toxicity of the world’s oceans. It is actually more coherent than The Soul of an Octopus, although I'm not sure more coherent comes out to better in this case. If people were silent, they could hear the noise of their own lives better. If people were silent, it would make what they did say, whenever they chose to say it, more important. If people were silent, they could read one another's signals, the way underwater creatures flash lights at one another, or turn their skin different colors."

During their sixth grade year, Franny became interested in boys and started to join a more popular social circle than the sometimes awkward Suzy, who had been best friends with Franny starting shortly after they met, when they were both five years old. After the two had a falling out in the sixth grade year, Franny died during the ensuing summer before they had a chance to heal their friendship. While The Thing About Jellyfish needed some rewriting in my mind the narrative alone is so gorgeous!! Ignore the child protagonist and explore loss, grief and friendship... No wonder I Am Jellyfish won Best Picture Book at this year’s New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Sterling rhyming, immersive illustrations, action, compassion, and a glow-in-the-dark cover to encourage littlies to turn off the light at bedtime. Mary de Ruyter, North and South There seemed to be very little structure. As this was Berwald's journey to learning about jellyfish, there is a chronological nature to the events described, but it still jumped around rather oddly and with no context about why a certain section was relevant at times.

Through Suzy's quest to prove her theory, the reader is treated to a handful of fascinating facts about jellyfish. I now know that jellyfish don't have brains, that some species can clone themselves and the various fatal effects of a jellyfish sting. I am sure my new found jellyfish expertise will come in handy someday, but for now they're just making me paranoid of swimming in open water. No more swimsuits for me. Jellyfish are, like the mythical Medusa, both beautiful and potentially dangerous. Found from pole to tropic, these mesmeric creatures form an important part of the sea's plankton and vary in size from the gigantic to the minute. Perceived as alien creatures and seen as best avoided, jellyfish nevertheless have the power to fascinate: with the sheer beauty of their translucent bells and long, trailing tentacles; with a mouth that doubles as an anus; and without a head or brain. The Thing About Jellyfish is a 2015 children's novel written by Ali Benjamin, her fiction debut. [1] Plot summary [ edit ] Suzy Swanson stopped talking when her best friend Franny died in a drowning accident. Channeling her lingering guilt over her last encounter with Franny and grief, Suzy turns to silence and science. Refusing to take her mother's stoic explanation that things just happen, Suzy shuts everybody out and obsessively works out a grandiose plan to prove that a jellyfish sting is the real reason for her best friend's death.