Beware the Squirrel
As parents and educators we want to keep our children safe, that is one of the main jobs of parenting, keep your child safe. The world looks a lot different than when we were children and sometimes we can go to extremes to keep our youth from harm. Tanya Lloyd Kyi does an incredible job of exploring safety and security as well as issues such as privacy and cyber bullying in our increasingly online world in Me and Banksy.
Dominica, Saanvi, and Holden all attend a private school for gifted students whose principal is hyper concerned with safety to the point of installing over thirty security cameras throughout the school keeping the students and teachers under constant surveillance. When the security system is hacked and embarrassing videos of students and teachers begin showing up in an online forum, the three friends know they need to do something to address the security breaches. When taking their concerns to the principal results in little action, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Paired by Dominica’s new found appreciation for the artist known as Banksy, they hatch a plan to let the world know how intrusive technology can be.
I love how Tanya Lloyd Kyi has explored issues that are at the forefront of the lives of middle schoolers today. She really let the story ask and answer the questions surrounding security and surveillance: when is it for protection and when does it violate our right to privacy? There is a real push and pull in the story but it always comes back to Dominica’s gut feeling that the level of scrutiny they experience at school is not right and violates their right to privacy at school and at home. She experiences it not only at school but at home when she questions how her grandmother can know so much about the comings and goings fof Dominica and her mother.
Me and Banksy is also a story about friendship and how friendship can evolve as children get older. The author also points out that what we see may not be the whole story about another person. What we don’t see is their motives behind their actions. When we take a minute to find out a little more about a person, perhaps we can have a little more empathy for them and a little more understanding of why they do what they do. I appreciated that Tanya Lloyd Kyi hinted at growing and changing feelings throughout the story but did not make it the focus of her story. It was a lovely addition to round out the story. I also appreciated that she gave us some conclusion to all of the feelings she is hinting at throughout the story.
I believe this story will appeal to so many middle school readers who are navigating new territory. They are figuring out how they fit in the world and what a wonderfully entertaining story to have as inspiration.
