I know some may see this as a condition she received to teach her a lesson, that there are those different from her, but I prefer to think the author meant that by a coincidence Deenie was able to open her eyes further when she herself receives the unsettling diagnosis. Events in her life force her to come out of her self-centered shell and see people as human beings worthy of notice. While Thelma is emotionally manipulative and reacts to situations as if she were the victim or tries to even blame Deenie and Helen, Frank is very calm and doesn't hesitate to comfort his daughters when they need him and yet also firm in that Deenie needs to wear her brace which she eventually realizes is right of him to do. The writing is as good as always, but, as far as Judy Blume books go, the connection to the characters seemed off, and the topic felt somewhat contrived.

Deenie - Wikipedia

This makes her hideously self-conscious and imagine not just being a teenage girl having to wear a brace. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand.The book centers on Winnie, a soon-to-be sixth grader who develops her own values and discernment after observing the racism that her next-door neighbors, a Black family, face after moving into her all-white neighborhood. She really got it, and this book has readers in a whole new place, somewhere that we didn't know about, a diagnoses of scoliosis.

Deenie - Wikiwand

One day, Deenie is diagnosed with scoliosis, and is prescribed a body brace to wear for the next four years. I'm reading some of the ebooks I've had marked as to-read for the longest, and for the first half of the book I was questioning what drew me to it other than it being Judy Blume and probably being on sale for kindle at one point. In fact, when I read that paragraph, I expected her to react the same way she did when Helen offered to help her with the pad, like "I can do it myself". And on that note, let's hear three cheers for Helen, Deenie's older sister: the brains and empathy of the family. In fact, Blume based the inspiration off of meeting a 14 year old girl who wore a brace and was adjusting, but her mother was the one on tears and coping poorly.And in the middle-grade area, a dedicated Judy Blume shelf was packed with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Superfudge, Blubber, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, Forever … and of course, Margaret. And, in her handful of books for adults, Blume takes a straight look at the complexities of life and love. When Deenie is revealed to have tried out for cheerleading, Thelma scolds her for doing so as well, saying that if Deenie had made the team, she wouldn't have time for a modeling career. When one of her longstanding pen pals told Blume that her parents were in crisis and would not be making it to her college graduation, at Bryn Mawr, Blume showed up – for a girl she had never met in the flesh.