Jessica Takes Charge #116

The principal decrees a requirement for all sixth grade students to do volunteer work.

Wait a minute. How can you 'require' someone to do 'volunteer' work? Volunteer means you do something voluntarily. The two are mutually exclusive of each other.

Anyhow, that's what's done at the school. There's a bunch of different things to 'volunteer' for. The job that you end up with is written on a card and distributed randomly which totally ignores whether or not the person that ends up with the card has any interest in or experience with what job they end up with.

Not the smartest way to do things to put it mildly. Elizabeth ends up helping at a soup kitchen and, thanks to Lila, has $200 to donate to them. Jessica ends up helping at a health station to teach really young kids about the heart and lungs.

One thing that is majorly upsetting is Jessica's attitude towards those who go to the soup kitchen. She says 'People who go to soup kitchens are nuts-everybody knows that.'

Had soup kitchens never been discussed in her history class, especially in relation to the Great Depression?

There's also a theme about a young man who had been in legal trouble and has tried to change his life around but, again thanks to Jessica, things may go bad for him.

Things work out all right, of course, but I would have liked to have seen something added maybe at the end of the book to point out how helpful soup kitchens have been especially to those who, through no actual fault of their own, don't have the money to but food.

I like how the story turns out but Jessica's attitude is quite disturbing.