when Claudia has a pseudo break-down, the school nurse administers a narcotic sedative via a shot (in what universe does this story take place?);

But worse than that was the constant jumping around between different timelines. There's Claudia in the "Before", as she is discovering that Monday has disappeared, Claudia in the "After", which is later when she knows what happened, and then we get chapters like "Two Years Before the Before", which not only sounds stupid, but also makes for a very confusing read. Monday’s Not Coming just shows us how fatal it is to not explicitly show support to young children like Monday and her siblings. We need to remember that children and teens are humans too and that they face the same trauma adults face from a different perspective. Society needs to change so that all calls for help are taken seriously. We need to change the system so that we don’t succumb to the ideology that children and teens’ problems are not as legitimate as those of adults’.Books are being pulled all over the country," Huffaker said. "Book challenges are up 60 percent in the country. They're happening in every single state." He added, "But just because we don't have an official challenge to a book doesn't mean we can't review titles for content." Claudia, at 14-16 years old, is younger than the protagonists I'm used to in YA, but her narrative felt younger still. There were parts where I felt like I was inside the head of an 8 year old. It made it difficult to settle into the flow of the book. Monday’s Not Coming is told in three different timelines. “One Year Before the Before” chronicles the year before the protagonist, Claudia’s, best friend Monday disappears. “The Before” details Claudia’s search for Monday. And “The After” takes place two years after authorities find Monday’s body—though Claudia (and for much of the novel, the reader) isn’t aware that it’s been two years. Claudia goes through the “After” timeline believing she’s 13, when she’s actually nearing her 16th birthday.

Claudia's school is so competitive and focused on test scores that it fails to recognize her glaring disability when, in fact, those school contexts would highlight her deficiencies; Claudia goes to school as usual...no Monday. No one has seen or heard from her, but no one except for Claudia even seems to be concerned. Everyone brushes Claudia off. Claudia refuses to take no answer for an answer. She needs to see Monday or hear from her to know that she's okay because Monday wouldn't do this. Not even Monday's mother or sister April help. a"When her friend Monday Charles goes missing and Monday's mother refuses to give her a straight answer, Claudia digs into her disappearance."-- |cProvided by publisher. I really really liked her kinda solid way of expressing the feelings of characters. I liked how she used the specific verbals of region like use of some indegionus slangs and words. none of the teachers in all of Claudia's seven years of schooling ever assigned in-class written assignments, essay or short answer tests, or read-alouds that would have highlighted her inability to read or write;It doesn't make any sense to me," he said. "It's like they're looking for a cause to fight for. Maybe it made more sense 50 years ago." I am appalled," she said. "I guess I assumed it was possible, which is why we prepare for something like this. I don't think as a librarian you ever expect it. You don't expect people to go against their own policies, for one thing. ... But access to information is such a universally, bipartisan concept. I just don't understand in what realm you decide limiting access to information is going to take you down a good path." Book challenges up nationwide I know what you’re thinking. How can a whole person, a kid, disappear and no one say a word? Like, if the sun just up and left one day, you’d think someone would sound an alarm, right? But Ma used to say, not everyone circles the same sun. I never knew what she meant by that until Monday went missing. Eventually it becomes apparent why the author decided to do this, but by that point I'd already struggled too much. And, to be honest, I find myself once again raising an eyebrow at the ending, rather than being impressed. Readers of Allegedly will be poised in anticipation of some twist and, just as I thought it weakened the ending of that book, I feel like we are again presented with a reveal so out of left field that it's more "seriously?" than "oh my god!". The policy, which was rewritten and approved by the Canyons Board of Education in May of 2020 says: "The material in question will remain in use during the challenge process." It also says that challenges can only be made by current students, parents who have children at the school in question or administrators, and the policy details how those challenges shall be made and what the process for reviewing questionable materials is.

In the “One Year Before the Before” chapters, the novel shows that a close friendship can be an extremely valuable source of support and safety. For instance, because of their close friendship, Monday and Claudia are able to effectively navigate a difficult bullying situation at school. Because they have each other to lean on, they usually find that it’s not even worth it to respond to their classmates’ taunts—they’ll never have to try to befriend them, anyway. Further, though Claudia doesn’t realize it until the end of the novel, the girls’ friendship offers Monday an important and necessary escape from the abuse and neglect she suffers at home. At Claudia’s house, Monday is able to see what a healthier relationship between two parents and between parents and children looks like; she’s able to eat full meals and have a clean, warm place to sleep; and perhaps most importantly, she’s temporarily safe from Mrs. Charles’s abuse. Michael, Claudia’s boyfriend in the “After” timeline, even suggests outright that Claudia saved Monday for years, simply by lessening the amount abuse that Monday could have otherwise suffered. no one at Claudia's school, including school counselors and nurses, either report or follow up on a missing child;

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We've done this every couple of weeks in the county system this year," she said. "I read this, and I ask, 'Why did this just happen? What are these books?' ... This is crazy stuff."

It's a compelling premise, to be sure, but the novel's confusing timeline paired with lots of padding drained every bit of tension and urgency out of the story. Where Allegedly had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish, Monday's Not Coming failed to make my heart pound and my jaw clench like the author’s first book. Teen Vogue compiled a list of some of the contemporary books being challenged that touch on sexuality, gender identity, abuse, death, racism, and other sensitive subjects that affect the everyday lives of teens. 1. Lawn Boy District spokesman Jeff Haney said the policy doesn't apply to this situation, and says the district decided to pull the books off the shelves of the school libraries while district officials review what they now feel is an issue with the policy itself — the fact that challenges to library materials cannot come from outside a school community, nor can they come from the superintendent's office or school board members.

Did we miss something on diversity?

At the Canyons School Board meeting on Nov. 8, a woman read aloud from a book that she said she found on the shelves of Alta High School's library. This book reminds us that teens face trauma every day, and their problems are deemed not important or not serious until it gets “serious” according to adult standards. When a student lashes out, runs away, or hurts themselves people recognize all the signs that they didn’t originally take seriously. The recurring theme in this book is that adults need to listen when asked for help. Often children suffer in silence because they don’t have the courage to speak up, but why is it that so many children don’t have the courage? Lawn Boy, by Jonathan Evinson, has been challenged at schools in several states, including Minnesota, Texas, and North Carolina. According to its publisher, Lawn Boy tells the story of “a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity — who just so happens to find himself along the way.” The 2018 novel has been criticized for its depictions of sexual situations, including a gay sexual experience from the protagonist’s childhood. At a school board meeting, one North Carolina dad even accused the book of “normalizing the sexualization of children and stealing their innocence.” 2. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Gender Queer," by Maia Kobabe, which is a memoir that a parent recently read excerpts from at a Canyons School Board meeting. This book, a graphic novel in which Kobabe discusses sexual orientation and gender identity, has made headlines recently for causing controversy in other states, including Texas. My immediate response was, 'What about the policy?'" she said. "I'd been on the committee to create the policy, so I knew what it was. ... I knew they were not (following) the policy."