I love Erin Dionne’s debut Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies, and not just because it, like Secrets, has overweight girls and pageants. It is laugh-out-loud funny, touching, and honest. The only downside is the cover makes you crave Oreos like there is no tomorrow and I don’t even really like Oreos. (I do however like chocolate covered peppermint Joes O’s from Trader Joes.)

Recently, Erin was interviewed in a great article about “positive characters of size.”  I need to get reading some of the other books mentioned in the article. I would also like to add Wrenn from Leigh Brescia’s One Wish. I’ve only just begun this book, and I am finding it tremendously powerful — and a bit like Leigh read my middle and high school years’ diary.

It just so happens that Erin and I, along with fellow Deb Deva Fagan, will be doing a panel at the Bar Harbor Book Festival about positive, unconventional female characters in YA and MG lit. We’d love to see you there!