The Metamorphosis of Bunny Baxter

Bun­ny Bax­ter thinks noth­ing could be worse than start­ing sev­enth grade at a school where she knows no one. But after her first day, she real­izes things can actu­al­ly get much worse.

If Bun­ny Bax­ter were an insect, she’d have so many ways to slip through sev­enth grade unno­ticed. But she’s tall instead of tiny, has flam­ing red Medusa hair instead of cam­ou­flage, and she suf­fers from social anx­i­ety, which makes it hard to be part of a swarm. Worst of all, she’s been redis­trict­ed to a new mid­dle school away from her best friend who she could always hide behind when her anx­i­ety got the best of her.

The first day at E.D. Britt Mid­dle School does not go well. Bun­ny trips on the steps, falls into the cutest boy in the school, and caus­es a kid domi­no pile-up. At lunch, she unin­ten­tion­al­ly caus­es an uproar in the cafe­te­ria, which lands her and anoth­er girl in the principal’s office. Bun­ny decides there is only one option: to get expelled so she can trans­fer to the school her best friend attends.

She soon dis­cov­ers that it isn’t that hard to get in trou­ble — don’t turn in your home­work, walk around the track instead of run in P.E., pre­tend you delib­er­ate­ly hit some­one with a bad­minton birdie. What isn’t so easy for Bun­ny is real­iz­ing she now has a rep­u­ta­tion as a trou­ble­mak­er. And even more con­fus­ing, when it looks like her plan to get expelled might work, she’s no longer sure what to do.

The Meta­mor­pho­sis of Bun­ny Bax­ter is a heart­felt com­ing of age sto­ry about an insect-lov­ing girl who is learn­ing to grow into her­self — quirks and all.