The Weird Kid's Guide to Surviving Fifth Grade (and Beyond): Five Years of Questions and Answers About Life

After years of writing for a living and working in classrooms from preschool to high school, I jumped at the chance to teach fifth grade. I was partnered that first year with an amazing teacher named Emmaly, and part of our curriculum included a unit on things like self-esteem, body image, peer pressure, puberty, and the dreaded S-E-X. At the end of each lesson we brought out a question box, which allowed students to submit anonymous questions about the topic of that day’s lesson, and they’d be answered out loud at the next lesson the following week. I was tasked with answering those questions, and to be honest, I was scared to death. I had, at that point, raised six kids; the youngest at that point was in her mid-teens, the oldest in his mid-twenties, and I still had no idea what the hell I was doing. Yes, I had had conversations with my kids about all of those things, and no, I was not convinced that I hadn’t royally screwed them up. Still, when it’s your first year in the classroom and you’re asked to do something, you smile and say, “Of course!” and you dive in and do the best you can.

It turns out that answering those questions became the highlight of my teaching career. I’d type them out each week and they’d go out to parents and a few school staff before the next lesson, and after the first or second round of them, people started asking me to put them in a book.

Five years later, I think I’m ready.

The questions in this book are from real kids; they show in stark detail the concerns, fears, and curiosities kids have about growing up, balanced on the precarious cliff between childhood and adulthood. There are some heavy questions here, and some lighthearted ones, and true to fifth grade form, an entire chapter about farts.

This is a book for kids, but parents are encouraged to read along. Some of the topics are complex and worthy of exploration beyond the answers I've given; at the same time, my hope is that each child can relate in some way to some part of this book, and can gain a bit more understanding about the world and of themselves, even without an adult following along with them.