Pack of Dorks

When Lucy’s first kiss doesn’t turn out the way she intended (and seriously, why is she kissing anyone in the first place? She’s way too young!), she discovers that it’s pretty easy to lose popularity. As you would guess, she’s not really excited about being one of the dorks, but a class project on wolves helps her realize just how alike wolves and humans are. Both humans and wolves are social animals, and both have their own version of a scapegoat—someone weak that the others can pick on to feel better about themselves. And nobody, wolf or human, wants to get stuck being the scapegoat.

In this story, Lucy sees that her “best friend” Becky would do anything to not be the scapegoat. When people start picking on Lucy, she realizes she can either try to get back in the cool crowd, or she can create her own pack of outcasts. I could go on about littler parts of the book, but the book does it better. I also really like all the references to wolves, and learned a lot about both wolves and people in this great book.