The Fashion Committee

by Susan Juby

Overview

"The Fashion Committee is another winner by one of my all time favorite authors."--Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author of the The Princess Diaries and Mediator series

Charlie Dean is a style-obsessed girl who eats, sleeps, and breathes fashion. John Thomas-Smith is a boy who forges metal sculptures in his garage and couldn’t care less about clothes. Both are gunning for a scholarship to the private art high school that could make all their dreams come true. Whoever wins the fashion competition will win the scholarship—and only one can win.

Told in the alternating voices of Charlie’s and John’s journals, this hilarious and poignant YA novel perfectly captures what it’s like to have an artistic drive so fierce that nothing—not your dad’s girlfriend’s drug-addicted ex-boyfriend, a soul-crushing job at Salad Stop, or being charged with a teensy bit of kidnapping—can stand in your way.

With black and white art custom-created by fashion and beauty illustrator Soleil Ignacio, the book is a collector’s item, perfect for anyone with a passion for fashion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698151055
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/23/2017
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Susan Juby (www.susanjuby.com) has written seven novels for teenagers. The most well-known is Alice, I Think, the first of the Alice MacLeod trilogy, which was made into a successful television series. She is also the author of a memoir, Nice Recovery, and the adult comic novel The Woefield Poetry Collective; the sequel, Republic of Dirt, has just been published in Canada. She is currently working on a second novel about the Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Design.
     Susan Juby lives in Nanaimo, BC, Canada, the setting for most of her books.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/03/2017
Readers don’t need to be fashionistas to appreciate the dilemmas of Charlene “Charlie” Dean and John Thomas-Smith as they prepare for a garment design competition, hoping to win a scholarship to a prestigious fine arts high school. Charlie knows just about everything there is to know about fashion design; immersing herself in it is a welcome escape from life with a drug-addicted father and his string of sketchy girlfriends. John, a classmate, couldn’t care less about the clothes, but is desperate to get into the school, and the contest is his last chance. As the rivals furiously brainstorm ideas, search for models, betray friends, and misplace their priorities in a race to win, they undergo significant changes that profoundly alter their outlooks. Charlie and John’s voices ring clear in a series of fashion diary entries (a requirement of the contest), reflecting their personalities, attitudes, and inner conflicts. Filled with hilarious and tragic moments alike, Juby’s (The Truth Commission) vibrant novel thoroughly explores the hearts, souls, and minds of two very different teens. Ages 12–up. Agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists. (May)

Publishers Weekly

PRAISE FOR The Fashion Committee:

* "Filled with hilarious and tragic moments alike, Juby’s . . . vibrant novel thoroughly explores the hearts, souls, and minds of two very different teens." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

* "The cleverly deceptive title, cover art, and opening pages belie the strength of the protagonists’ personalities as well as the tragic elements that have shaped their lives and define the story."—School Library Journal, starred review 

"Entertaining, smart, and inspiring." —Kirkus Reviews

"Tailored to perfection for readers who love to laugh and look good doing it."—The Globe and Mail

"Charlie is perhaps Juby’s finest character to date, not just seriously inventive, buoyant and insightful in fashion sense and philosophy, but also a poignant testament to the resilience of a girl determined to live well despite her parent’s struggle with addiction."—The Star

"Expect hilarity." —Quill & Quire

PRAISE FOR The Truth Commission:

"With a deft hand and an open mind, Juby presents many layers of truth. This is a sharp-edged portrait of a dysfunctional family with some thought-provoking ideas about what is real." —Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

"A surprising, witty, and compulsive read." —Starred Review, School Library Journal

"Hilarious, deliciously provocative and slyly thought-provoking." —Starred Review, Kirkus 

"Juby’s bright dialogue and vivid, appealing characters draw readers along as the three young artists navigate truths both light and dark, discovering themselves in the process." —Starred Review, The Horn Book

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—Charlie Dean and John Thomas-Smith live on the wrong side of the tracks, but they both want to attend the private and exclusive Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Design. Their local public high school is so poorly funded that all nonessential classes, including art, have been eliminated from the curriculum. But every year, Green Pastures sponsors an emerging talents scholarship worth one year's tuition to its exclusive academy for the winner of a discipline-specific competition. This year, Charlie Dean is in luck. The competition focuses on fashion design, her specialty and lifelong obsession. John, however, is into metalwork, but this being his junior year and last chance to enter, he's fudging his way into the competition just to get his foot in the door. Juby has created two compelling, multidimensional narrators whom readers will laugh with and cry for as they vie for the coveted prize. Charlie Dean is a master at turning the sow's ear that life has dealt her into a unique silk purse, while John is so consumed by anger at his circumstances that he fails to appreciate the many blessings laid at his doorstep. The cleverly deceptive title, cover art, and opening pages belie the strength of the protagonists' personalities as well as the tragic elements that have shaped their lives and define the story. VERDICT An excellent purchase for YA.—Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA

School Library Journal

2017-03-06
Talented teens vie for a highly coveted fashion scholarship.British Columbian Juby (The Truth Commission, 2015, etc.) here presents the small-town (her own hometown of Nanaimo) drama of two public high school students who have their hearts set on gaining entry to an elite private arts school. Both Charlene "Charlie" Dean, a fashion-obsessed sophomore, and John Thomas-Smith, a "calm-and-aloof" type whose passion is metalworking, seek to better their circumstances and pursue their artistic dreams by winning the fashion-design competition for a one-year scholarship to Green Pastures Academy, which boasts "the best fashion program of any high school in the country" and which, incidentally, neither of their families can afford. Though seemingly antagonists, alternating narrators John and Charlie, both white, serve rather as dueling protagonists whose compelling struggles are revealed through the distinctively voiced diaries they must keep in the months leading up to the fashion show. Juby's thoughtful bildungsroman excels in showcasing and normalizing those on society's fringe—whether it be in her bold portrayal of differing socio-economic class issues or subtle examination of gender identity. Her tale gains great momentum from the grit and ingenuity Charlie, who believes the "most chic thing is self-sufficiency," exhibits in tackling hurdles, resulting from being a child of drug abusers, alongside John, who's also a child of largely absent parents and whose snarky bitterness makes an excellent foil to Charlie's ebullience. Entertaining, smart, and inspiring. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews