Us Three by Mia Kerick asks tough questions and offers surprising answers with compassion and style. At first glance, this seems like a story about highschool bullying. Some of the choices the author made to portray that familiar problem are unusual in themselves: the target of the bullying, main character Casey, has a fantastically supportive home life and a nicely honed set of personal resources (where were the classmates who knew how to make crepes for a French class project when I was in highschool?). Not only that, his bullies are girls – an interesting pick, even though we never explore head bully Liz’s motivation. But! This is far from a simple bullying story. Each of Casey’s boyfriends (oh, another surprise — Casey is in a three-part relationship with 2 other boys) must wrestle with his own fears and find his own courage. All three boys confront layers of homophobia and societal conditioning when they claim each other as sweethearts. When they take that revolution of the heart outside to rally their peers in an anti-bullying campaign? You’ll be running out of the house to join them.
