Measuring Up

An ALA Top 10 Graphic Novel of 2021 · A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection · Fall 2020 Kids Indie Next List · Featured in Today Show’s AAPI Heritage Month List · Amazon Best Books November Selection · Cybils Awards Finalist · An NBC AAPI Selection · Featured in Parents Magazine Book Nook October issue · A CBC Hot off the Press October Selection · WA State Book Awards Finalist · Texas Library Association Little Maverick Selection For fans of American Born Chinese and Roller Girl, Measuring Up is a don't-miss graphic novel debut from Lily LaMotte and Ann Xu! “A beautiful story about food, family, and finding your place in the world.” —Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese and Dragon Hoops “A delicious and heartwarming exploration of identity by a young immigrant trying to find her place in multiple cultures.” —Remy Lai, author of Pie in the Sky and Fly on the Wall Twelve-year-old Cici has just moved from Taiwan to Seattle, and the only thing she wants more than to fit in at her new school is to celebrate her grandmother, A-má’s, seventieth birthday together. Since she can’t go to A-má, Cici cooks up a plan to bring A-má to her by winning the grand prize in a kids’ cooking contest to pay for A-má’s plane ticket! There’s just one problem: Cici only knows how to cook Taiwanese food. And after her pickled cucumber debacle at lunch, she’s determined to channel her inner Julia Child. Can Cici find a winning recipe to reunite with A-má, a way to fit in with her new friends, and somehow find herself too?

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

Senior year is full of surprises when Chloe returns home from her internship in New York City. While she was learning the ins and outs of the fashion industry, her friends were getting ready for senior year. Settling back into her old life proves to be harder than Chloe thought. As much as she tries to fall into her old routine, she can't help feeling left out and left behind. Chloe is ready to realize her dream of being a designer, but deciding on a fashion school is another story -- especially when that means deciding between California or New York. And when she agrees to design dresses for Winter Formal, the pressure grows even more intense. Can Chloe handle the stress of senior year and figure out what her future holds?

Written to point the way to freedom for Christians who live under an unwritten religious code of expectations and rules that drain them of spiritual strength.

Publisher Description

The mute gestures of advertising images are frozen for posterity by photographers and illustrators, gestures that, for better or worse, perpetuate a certain aesthetic and eventually become emblematic of a period. The images of today display the values of a society that has more interest in the body than the mind. They are technoenhanced labyrinths of unattainable appearances that leave women and men feeling horrified, estranged, and restricted by unrealistic, silent mandates. Measuring Up looks at advertising as more than just a way to extract money from unsuspecting people but as a vehicle for conveying the larger views of a confining, body-obsessed culture. By weaving theoretical and textual insights from feminist and cultural studies with the voices of real women and men, Measuring Up offers a unique reception analysis of the effects of repetitious exposure to advertisements of perfect bodies in our everyday lives. Shields examines a particular, complex relationship between the idealized images of gender we see in advertising and our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior in relation to these images. The study is unique in presenting audience reception in terms of ethnographic data, not textual interpretations alone. Measuring Up engages with and informs current theoretical debates within these sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory literatures: feminist media studies, feminist film theory, critical social theory, cultural studies, and critical ethnography. This is an important work that explores the forms and channels of power used in one of the most insidious and overt means of mass influence in popular culture.

Until recently, Jonah’s life has been wonderfully simple: school, partying and surfing with his mates. It’s been uncomplicated — like riding the perfect wave. But that’s all about to change. With the stress of year 12 looming, Jonah’s mission to have sex before his eighteenth birthday is not going well. Jonah’s lack of self-confidence is fuelling his fear that he’s destined to live in the shadow of his legendary older brother, Link. And just when he thinks that things couldn’t get any more complicated his brother drops a bombshell on his unsuspecting family. But life has a funny way of sorting out the big issues from the small. And Jonah discovers that sometimes the answers you’re looking for are right in front of you … Measuring Up is a fresh and funny story of friendship, surf and raging hormones.

This is an exploration of the problems caused by the relentless pressure many Americans feel to measure up successfully in respect of school grades, beauty, economic achievement, and various quantified aptitudes. The book focuses on various aspects, both major and minor, of social and cultural life, discussing topics such as culture, socialization, peer groups, reference groups, presentations of self, gender roles, class inequality, deindustrialization, corporate downsizing, status systems, and human agency. Having taken his critical look at modern cultural values that support the performance ethic, the author concludes with hope for a reorientation of values that could promote a more productive sense of identity in America.