Theater Kids

Mindy, Kimmy, and Sonia are beginning the summer between seventh and eighth grade and none of them are feeling very good about it. Mindy gained a lot of weight over the winter, and at the same time, her best friend ditched her for two more popular girls, so she spends most of her time alone, watching reruns of Friends. Kimmy has always been painfully shy, and now that her parents are getting a divorce, she has to move in with her grandparents and be the only new girl in the eighth grade. Sonia's mother has been battling cancer for the last two years, and Sonia's anxiety attacks are so bad that she had to be homeschooled for a year. All three girls reluctantly find themselves in a local theater camp where they get so swept up with the magic of putting on a musical revue that they start to forget about their own problems. Throughout the course of the summer, the three girls work through their personal issues while having the time of their lives with all the new interesting people they've been thrown in with. By the end of the summer, Mindy, Kimmy, and Sonia are officially "theater kids." They and their new friends are ready to take on eighth grade.

-- Jeanne McGowan Sheehan