{"product_id":"not-much-just-chillin-the-hidden-lives-of-middle-schoolers-9780345475763","title":"Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers","description":"Suddenly they go from striving for A's to barely passing, from fretting about cooties to obsessing for hours about crushes. Former chatterboxes answer in monosyllables; freethinkers mimic everything from clothes to opinions. Their bodies and psyches morph through the most radical changes since infancy. They are kids in the middle-school years, the age every adult remembers well enough to dread. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHere at last is an up-to-date anthropology of this critically formative period. Prize-winning education reporter Linda Perlstein spent a year immersed in the lunchroom, classrooms, hearts, and minds of a group of suburban Maryland middle schoolers and emerged with this pathbreaking account. Perlstein reveals what's really going on under kids' don't-touch-me facade while they grapple with schoolwork, puberty, romance, and identity. A must-read for parents and educators, \u003ci\u003eNot Much Just Chillin'\u003c\/i\u003e offers a trail map to the baffling no-man's-land between child and teen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLinda Perlstein\u003c\/b\u003e was a prizewinning education reporter for \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eNot Much Just Chillin'\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Washington, D.C.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Ballantine Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51779415146770,"sku":"9780345475763","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_10a03c7c-ee67-4d18-a433-eae720461d35.jpg?v=1765369930","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/not-much-just-chillin-the-hidden-lives-of-middle-schoolers-9780345475763","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}