Let Me Fix That for You by Janice Erlbaum

Gladys (Glad) is a seventh grade with a gift for fixing other people's problems. Many middle graders will enjoy this book and find a path to self-acceptance and a suggestion to leave well enough alone through its pages. The author handles deftly some tough topics such as imperfect parents who often say one thing and do another, making it hard for their children to trust them. In the end, though, Glad needs to fix herself and leave everyone else to their own devices. I appreciated how messy Glad's life becomes even though she has good intentions and how she comes to realize that some folks have very good reasons for needing a situation fixed. But all this fixing is taking a toll on Glad, and she buckles under the pressure, especially when she realizes that Sophie Nelson, a classmate with a tendency to take things, has been using her. When she learns that her mother is coming for a visit, Glad decides that her father is due for a makeover so that her parents will realize how perfect they are for each other. Even at home her older sister, Mabey, expects her to cover for her.

Glad is happy to help out her classmates, hoping that the favors she does will end up resulting in friendships. Glad has become known as a fixer in her middle grade class, someone who can come up with solutions to tricky problems or a way to avoid facing the consequences of one's actions. There are plenty of folks out here who will recognize themselves in Gladys, the twelve-year-old protagonist in this book. Janice teaches memoir writing and has addressed audiences at colleges, coffee houses, and theaters across the East Coast. Her work has been featured in Glamour, Redbook, Marie Claire, Elle, Elle UK, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, and New York Times. She was a contributor to BUST magazine from 1994 through 2007. Her poetry and prose have been featured in anthologies including ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, THE BUST GUIDE TO THE NEW GIRL ORDER, THE BEST AMERICAN EROTIC POEMS FROM 1800 TO THE PRESENT, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHER’S HANDBOOK: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir, and VERSES THAT HURT: Pleasure and Pain from the POEMFONE Poets. Her next tween book, LET ME FIX THAT FOR YOU, is coming in July '19. ’08), and one novel, I, LIAR (Thought Catalog Books, 2015).įor tweens, her first novel, LUCKY LITTLE THINGS was published by MacMillan Books for Young Readers in July '18.

Her books for adults include two memoirs, GIRLBOMB: A Halfway Homeless Memoir (Villard, March ’06), and HAVE YOU FOUND HER: A Memoir (Villard, Feb.

She produces a weekly video series called 'Advice for Young Writers.' Janice Erlbaum writes books, some of which are for tweens, others of which are for adults.

Let Me Fix That for You by Janice Erlbaum