Just Watch Me!

by Erin Silver

Overview

A typical tweenTwelve-year-old Simon Rosen has a plan: make videos to ace his class project, earn a trip to Vancouver, participate in the Video Game Championships, get his parents to fall back in love.His parent's marriage is falling apartBut when he tries to record himself, he soon learns that plans can go embarrassingly awry.He has one chance to keep his family togetherA hilarious, relevant fast-paced middle grade novel about friendship, bullying and the power and perils of social media.'the breezy, sometimes slapstick humor will appeal to reluctant readers.' School Library Journal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781988761541
Publisher:	Common Deer Press
Publication date:	10/07/2020
Pages:	135
Product dimensions:	5.73(w) x 8.56(h) x 0.36(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Erin Silver has a postgraduate journalism degree and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Globe & Mail, Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping.

Editorial Reviews

Recommended Erin Silver’s Just Watch Me is about 12-year-old Simon Rosen and his experiences in Technology class with the new class assignment. Instead of a robotics course, Simon’s class is focused on social media, and, in his assignment, he has to live stream on VideoKids channel. There will be only one “A” awarded, and Simon has to get an "A" if his master plan to get his parents back together will work. One video after another is increasingly more embarrassing than the last. It is all unintentional, and the surprising result is that Simon’s classmates believe it is all on purpose. Just Watch Me is about more than just Simon’s technology class. It is about Simon, his friendships, and his family situation which is falling apart. Simon, like many teens, believes he can save his parents' marriage by getting an "A" and then going to Vancouver for the Video Game Championship for which he has already qualified. This goal is not realistic, but he works towards this even to the extent of jeopardizing his long friendship with Jocelyn who also wants to get an "A". Her reasons focus on proving to her family that she is working hard at school. Silver has created a very believable character in Simon. His experiences are equally believable. He is a typical tween struggling to get through as his parents' marriage is falling apart and he feels powerless. He is also that “That kid” who is picked on and made fun of constantly. The topic of bullying is also explored bravely in Just Watch Me.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials, December 4, 2020; Volume XXV11, Issue 14 - Christina Pike

11/01/2020

Gr 4–6—Twelve-year-old Simon has a lot on his plate. He's a gamer who is good enough to compete in an all-Canadian competition whose finals will be held in Vancouver. He'd love to make it to the finals and bring his parents, hoping a trip to the place where they met could save their marriage and stop their fighting. They have said they would consider the trip if he earns straight A's in seventh grade. He has developed a crush on his BFF, Jocelyn. The two have been friends since she moved to Toronto from the Philippines when they were in third grade. He's also bullied relentlessly by the Mendelsohn twins. Simon is stressing over the project his technology teacher has assigned; it involves livestreamed videos that are uploaded to a private channel. Grading is based on originality and numbers of likes by classmates. This project is unrealistic enough to make any teacher cringe and fear for their job, but it might be up TikTok-obsessed readers' alley. Simon is an appealing narrator. His videos are humorously disastrous, yet ironically popular among his classmates. Jocelyn is a well-drawn, passionate friend. Unfortunately, most of the adults and the twins veer toward one-dimensional stereotypes. VERDICT Though Simon reads a bit young as a seventh grader, he's relatable, and the breezy, sometimes slapstick humor will appeal to reluctant readers.—Brenda Kahn, Tenakill M.S., Closter, NJ

School Library Journal

2020-07-28
A class livestreaming assignment creates both humiliations and new friendships for 12-year-old Simon.

For Grade 7 technology class, Simon’s required to do a livestream on a shared platform. Students who create “engaging content”—that is, those students who get lots of likes and comments by their classmates—will get the better grades. Simon, who is White, wants an A, as his constantly fighting parents have promised as a reward for good grades to take him to the Canadian Video Game Championships; he secretly hopes they’ll reconcile on the trip. His best friend, Jocelyn, who is Filipina, wants to get an A in order to be allowed to continue her mixed martial arts training. It feels to Simon as though his plans to create engaging content are cursed. In a series of accidental livestreams (of increasingly dubious probability), Simon streams his dog playing with his mother’s underwear, a mortifying toilet incident, pet mouth-to-mouth, and worse. Weirdly, every video makes Simon more popular thanks to the unintentional comedy. Everything goes awry when Simon’s teacher, at the behest of the private company that owns the video app, changes the grading guidelines for the class (inexplicably presented as a normal educational choice). Suddenly, Jocelyn and Simon are no longer allies. And Simon needs allies, for though the school’s a “no-bullying zone,” the teachers are oblivious to the violent bullies who target Simon—even when they livestream the violence for their own course assignments. Video games and slapstick poop jokes can’t salvage this haphazard plot.

Insufficiently exaggerated for farce, insufficiently plausible for anything else. (Fiction. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews