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Standing Up to Mr. O.
In a novel about relationships and moral convictions, seventh-grader Maggie McIntosh learns who her allies are when she refuses to dissect a worm during biology class. By the author of Dinah Forever. Jr Lib Guild.
- GenresYoung AdultFiction
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1900
5 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Claudia Mills
84 books135 followersClaudia Mills is the author of Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, 7 x 9 = Trouble!, Zero Tolerance, Write This Down, and many other books for children. She was born in New York City in 1954. She received her bachelor's degree from Wellesley College, her master's degree from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. She also received an M.L.S. degree from the University of Maryland, with a concentration in children's literature. She had a second career as a professor of philosophy at the Colorado at Boulder, until leaving that career in 2014 to write full time. She now teaches in the graduate program in children's literature at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. All of her books have been written between 5 and 7 in the morning while drinking Swiss Miss hot chocolate.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/claudi...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/claudi...
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 6, 2019
A very earnest story that I read while researching children's books for an Animal Rights seminar in law school. The heroine is awakened to sentient beings when forced to dissect an earthworm in middle school.
November 3, 2015
This book is about a girl who is in love with animals and her class is supposed to start doing dissections and she refuses. She then refuses to do it two more times. She also starts liking the bad boy. Every thing goes downhill from there.
August 21, 2017
This was one of the thought provoking books I would recommend for middle schoolers because it proposed a well structured approach on the arguments for and against animal experimentation when compared with giving up meat eating by the same line of thought. When I had first read it, I was surprised to find several approaches I had not yet considered despite it being a book well below my reading level. Of course the author was biased only at a acceptable level where you could tell that she was vegetarian however only near the end because most of the book we only saw arguments for animal experimentation and meat eating with the rebuttals not necessarily being rebuttals as much as it being presented as an individual experience from multiple perspectives where she was open to the acknowledgment that it should be a choice. They also brought up the form of parenting girls experience that male teachers would see as a disabling form of raising a child to enjoy stem fields even if the female preferred it that way due to most male upbringing following a "forced" regimen of cultural pressures.
June 8, 2022
Another great read from this author that my son and I read together. Maggie is in middle school and her favourite teacher, Mr O is requiring the class to do dissections in biology and she is horrified at the prospect of killing an innocent animal. She must decide whether to follow her convictions in spite of the negative impact this creates in addition to disappointing the people who are important in her life. Great life lesson! My only criticism for this book is her relationship with Mr O raised a bit of a red flag. My husband works in the school system and he would never ever invite a girl to have lunch alone with him, or touch her, even if it's only on the shoulder. My son picked up on it too, but I explained that this book was likely written in a different decade and things were simpler then in many ways. I loved the growth Maggie showed, her insight into relationships with boys and friends, all valuable lessons that we can learn from!
April 30, 2015
Get a grip, girl. DISSECT THE WORM.
this book was well written in style but the characters and storyline were pathetic, The author used good description and literary devices but a 12 year old girl who was originally the pet refuses to dissect something, becomes, a vegetarian over that, and starts kissing the class bad boy? No. Save yourself hours wasted, and burn this.
this book was well written in style but the characters and storyline were pathetic, The author used good description and literary devices but a 12 year old girl who was originally the pet refuses to dissect something, becomes, a vegetarian over that, and starts kissing the class bad boy? No. Save yourself hours wasted, and burn this.
November 20, 2019
Oh dear Lord this girl has problems.
One of my students and I decided to pull the weird, old books off the shelves and start a Weird Book Book Club.
Read #1.
This was just way too much. Daddy issues, bad-boy who smokes issues, a middle school teacher literally chopping the head off a frog in class issues, hello ethics??? Middle school???!
Everything is a cliche inside a cliche.
Can't wait for our discussion 😂😂😂😂
One of my students and I decided to pull the weird, old books off the shelves and start a Weird Book Book Club.
Read #1.
This was just way too much. Daddy issues, bad-boy who smokes issues, a middle school teacher literally chopping the head off a frog in class issues, hello ethics??? Middle school???!
Everything is a cliche inside a cliche.
Can't wait for our discussion 😂😂😂😂
December 17, 2020
The late American philosopher Gareth B. Matthews reviewed this book for his column "Thinking in Stories," for the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, in which he praised the book for covering “Almost all the points one would want to include in ... a discussion of moral issues concerning the treatment of animals." (https://www.montclair.edu/iapc/review...)
May 13, 2024
Young kid goes to camp I believe with her favorite teacher. I think this is for middle school children and a good literary level for those starting out reading. I like the picture, and I think overall for me it was alright, it was school related trouble which a lot of people could relate to.
October 13, 2015
Maggie is a twelve-year old girl with a problem: her biology teacher, whom she greatly admires, had begun a unit on dissection. A good student, Maggie faces the choice of going against what she knows in her heart to be wrong, or receiving a failing grade. Young readers will be able to relate, as classroom dissection is a dilemma that many students unfortunately face each school year.
First up on the dissection table is an earthworm. Maggie dislikes and fears worms, but she still thinks it’s wrong to kill them needlessly—an important modeling of empathy.
Maggie’s mom is divorced and is cynical about much of the world around her. She advises Maggie to just “grin and bear” the dissection exercises but doesn’t interfere in her choices. Early on, Mom also mentions some vegans she works with—she correctly defines “vegan,” but mocks the concept, saying, “imagine coming up with a menu for someone like that.”
Maggie talks to friend Matt about her decision not to do the dissection. Matt is smart and analytical—indeed, his words are simply too measured and mature in my opinion to be a believably written seventh grader. He points out that Maggie’s hypocrisy in continuing to eat animals while complaining about the senseless waste of life in the classroom. Maggie decides to become a vegetarian on the spot.
I’ll say how happy I was to see this discussion raised in STANDING UP TO MR. O. So many juvenile (and adult, for that matter) fiction books feature characters who worry and crusade for one type of animal all the while stuffing their faces with meat. It remains completely invisible as an issue.
Maggie works up the courage to tell her mom about her new dietary choice. After ascertaining that her daughter doesn’t have an eating disorder, Mom asks her to promise she won’t become a vegan, and Maggie said she wouldn’t—because, she rationed, you don’t have to kill a cow to get milk. They go out for Thai food and Maggie tries a vegetarian dish that she enjoys.
Maggie is quickly disabused by any notion that milk and eggs are humane when Matt gives a short, though accurate, picture of the lives experienced by cows and hens on factory farms, concluding that “they are miserable every day of their lives.”
Like many lacto-ovo vegetarians, Maggie is conflicted.
However wrong it was to eat animal products, it had to be worse to eat animal products and to eat meat and to dissect animals. Because you couldn’t save all animals, did that mean you shouldn’t save any?
I happen to agree. There are innumerable ways people exploit and abuse animals in modern society, and every step a person takes away from this system is a good thing.
However, Maggie does decide to become a vegan. I was worried it wasn’t going to stick when she has difficulty making food choices, and worries about eating tofu at every meal. While this may indeed be a problem for a vegan child in an omnivore family, it reality, the amount and variety of vegan food is so large, I don’t think it’s possible to get bored. (Just contrast the number of vegetables and fruits in a grocery store with the number of species represented in the meat case, and you have your answer right there regarding variety.)
In what may be a disappointment to any real vegans reading the book, Mom decides to compromise, and states she will only buy free-range eggs and dairy. She once again claims the vegans she knows are “extremely self-righteous and annoying.” Maggie decides not to be a vegan, and they end the chapter agreeing to make cheese omelets. However, as readers may or may not know, “free range” animals in any sort of commercial enterprise go to the same slaughterhouses as their factory-farmed cousins as soon as their production wanes, and free range dairy calves are still taken away from their mothers, causing considerable distress to both animals.
However, once again, Maggie is still doing better than the vast majority of her peers, even if she isn’t perfect.
This is a well-written book that will keep the attention of most readers, even if they don’t consider themselves animal lovers. It didn’t end the way we might wish, but it was realistic, and Maggie stuck with her beliefs, which was important.
First up on the dissection table is an earthworm. Maggie dislikes and fears worms, but she still thinks it’s wrong to kill them needlessly—an important modeling of empathy.
Maggie’s mom is divorced and is cynical about much of the world around her. She advises Maggie to just “grin and bear” the dissection exercises but doesn’t interfere in her choices. Early on, Mom also mentions some vegans she works with—she correctly defines “vegan,” but mocks the concept, saying, “imagine coming up with a menu for someone like that.”
Maggie talks to friend Matt about her decision not to do the dissection. Matt is smart and analytical—indeed, his words are simply too measured and mature in my opinion to be a believably written seventh grader. He points out that Maggie’s hypocrisy in continuing to eat animals while complaining about the senseless waste of life in the classroom. Maggie decides to become a vegetarian on the spot.
I’ll say how happy I was to see this discussion raised in STANDING UP TO MR. O. So many juvenile (and adult, for that matter) fiction books feature characters who worry and crusade for one type of animal all the while stuffing their faces with meat. It remains completely invisible as an issue.
Maggie works up the courage to tell her mom about her new dietary choice. After ascertaining that her daughter doesn’t have an eating disorder, Mom asks her to promise she won’t become a vegan, and Maggie said she wouldn’t—because, she rationed, you don’t have to kill a cow to get milk. They go out for Thai food and Maggie tries a vegetarian dish that she enjoys.
Maggie is quickly disabused by any notion that milk and eggs are humane when Matt gives a short, though accurate, picture of the lives experienced by cows and hens on factory farms, concluding that “they are miserable every day of their lives.”
Like many lacto-ovo vegetarians, Maggie is conflicted.
However wrong it was to eat animal products, it had to be worse to eat animal products and to eat meat and to dissect animals. Because you couldn’t save all animals, did that mean you shouldn’t save any?
I happen to agree. There are innumerable ways people exploit and abuse animals in modern society, and every step a person takes away from this system is a good thing.
However, Maggie does decide to become a vegan. I was worried it wasn’t going to stick when she has difficulty making food choices, and worries about eating tofu at every meal. While this may indeed be a problem for a vegan child in an omnivore family, it reality, the amount and variety of vegan food is so large, I don’t think it’s possible to get bored. (Just contrast the number of vegetables and fruits in a grocery store with the number of species represented in the meat case, and you have your answer right there regarding variety.)
In what may be a disappointment to any real vegans reading the book, Mom decides to compromise, and states she will only buy free-range eggs and dairy. She once again claims the vegans she knows are “extremely self-righteous and annoying.” Maggie decides not to be a vegan, and they end the chapter agreeing to make cheese omelets. However, as readers may or may not know, “free range” animals in any sort of commercial enterprise go to the same slaughterhouses as their factory-farmed cousins as soon as their production wanes, and free range dairy calves are still taken away from their mothers, causing considerable distress to both animals.
However, once again, Maggie is still doing better than the vast majority of her peers, even if she isn’t perfect.
This is a well-written book that will keep the attention of most readers, even if they don’t consider themselves animal lovers. It didn’t end the way we might wish, but it was realistic, and Maggie stuck with her beliefs, which was important.
November 19, 2011
This book is what gave me the guts to walk out of my high school frog dissection. I'm not kidding. Granted, I didn't get an F for it because my teacher let me watch a virtual dissection, but my eyes were opened to this moral issue in middle school thanks to Standing Up to Mr. O.
The writing style is quite different; it's firmly 20th-century writing, without that close contact with the protagonist that we're used to nowadays even in third-person limited. Somehow, Maggie still sounds like a close friend, thanks to all the problems she works through. Her growth through the moral questions and problematic relationships will endear her to readers.
Jake. The ultimate and most realistic bad boy I've yet to read about. (Pardon the fragment; he just needs that kind of emphasis.) He genuinely likes Maggie, but he likes Maggie more; he isn't just a brooding, looks-like-he-might-be-dangerous guy. He does cause trouble, unlike other so-called "bad boys". Matt: the good guy, but not a doormat (thank God!). He's high-handed and arrogant, which makes his developing relationship with Maggie all the more sweet. I could never pick between them. <3
Alycia provides an interesting foil to Maggie, as does Maggie's mother; even Alycia's parents are briefly but well sketched out. As for Mr. O -- well, it might be just the paranoid little girl in me, but I viewed his relationship with Maggie as almost pedophilistic, and that hasn't changed upon re-reading it. Thank goodness the book doesn't totally centre around that.
With a plot that moves itself and genuine characters populating the novel, Standing Up to Mr. O is a throwback to the 20st century with a modern topic that shouldn't be missed.
The writing style is quite different; it's firmly 20th-century writing, without that close contact with the protagonist that we're used to nowadays even in third-person limited. Somehow, Maggie still sounds like a close friend, thanks to all the problems she works through. Her growth through the moral questions and problematic relationships will endear her to readers.
Jake. The ultimate and most realistic bad boy I've yet to read about. (Pardon the fragment; he just needs that kind of emphasis.) He genuinely likes Maggie, but he likes Maggie more; he isn't just a brooding, looks-like-he-might-be-dangerous guy. He does cause trouble, unlike other so-called "bad boys". Matt: the good guy, but not a doormat (thank God!). He's high-handed and arrogant, which makes his developing relationship with Maggie all the more sweet. I could never pick between them. <3
Alycia provides an interesting foil to Maggie, as does Maggie's mother; even Alycia's parents are briefly but well sketched out. As for Mr. O -- well, it might be just the paranoid little girl in me, but I viewed his relationship with Maggie as almost pedophilistic, and that hasn't changed upon re-reading it. Thank goodness the book doesn't totally centre around that.
With a plot that moves itself and genuine characters populating the novel, Standing Up to Mr. O is a throwback to the 20st century with a modern topic that shouldn't be missed.
July 11, 2009
Totally unappealing jacket picture. Cover it with brown paper! But Claudia Mills writes great characters, great dialogue, and authentic middle-grade conflicts. Mostly a character book (you'll feel like you know idealistic Maggie, cold but brainy Matt, even Maggie's funny, exhausted mom) but with enough drama to keep it moving forward: will Maggie give in and dissect an animal, even though she feels it's wrong? Who will win the essay contest? And how come bad-boy Jake has started holding Maggie's hand? (Ooooh...)
And hurrah for (mostly) correct info about vegans, vegetarians, factory farms, and the debate over animal dissection. Animals *matter* to kids. And lots of kids in elementary and middle school start having questions about the way humans treat animals, but few books talk about it.
And hurrah for (mostly) correct info about vegans, vegetarians, factory farms, and the debate over animal dissection. Animals *matter* to kids. And lots of kids in elementary and middle school start having questions about the way humans treat animals, but few books talk about it.
April 4, 2012
A book about a middle-school girl who has is sure that she is the teacher's pet and is so impressed that her biology teacher understands her and the trials that life has thrown in her path. Then she finds that he requires students to dissect worms, fish, etc. This not only makes her squeamish, but she feels that this is cruel to kill for this purpose. This causes her to examine her lifestyle and reexamine the character of several people in her life. She sees that she has made mistakes in her character judgement and in making adjustments in life has to continually examine her thoughts and decisions and make changes.
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March 23, 2009I learned from this book that you should always stand up for yourself. In this book there was a young girl who had to disect a worm for a science lab. She thought that this was cruel so she refused to do it. Through out the book she was fighting for what she beleived in.
March 22, 2009
This book explains how it feels like to be a vegan in a society which does not care about animal cruelty.
August 15, 2011
The story is straightforward and pretty ordinary, but I really like that it centers on a teenager's struggles with the ethics of dissection and meat-eating and the power of choice.
July 22, 2025
Read sometime around 3rd-5th grade. I don’t know why I remember its plot so vividly. Not that interesting. I don’t hate it. I don’t why I remember it????
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March 19, 2019The book is written in involving, fluid and easy language. The humor in the pages keeps the smile on your lips even in the tensed moments.
I found this book in EEP library. I took it for Saniya as it was a story of the 7 th grader. and decided to give it a try before. Though I read it from adult’s point of view, many a times the book made me travel through the years to my own dissection days in the college and I really never felt the way Maggie feels about the cruelty on animals. I really wonder if my own daughter will be that sensitive …!
This book has everything a teenager wants.. excitment, feelings, friendships, romance.. Same time it throws a light on the relationships.. some life lessons about friendships! I think characters of Jake, Matt and Alysia are so real and I hope my daughter learns through this book…
I found this book in EEP library. I took it for Saniya as it was a story of the 7 th grader. and decided to give it a try before. Though I read it from adult’s point of view, many a times the book made me travel through the years to my own dissection days in the college and I really never felt the way Maggie feels about the cruelty on animals. I really wonder if my own daughter will be that sensitive …!
This book has everything a teenager wants.. excitment, feelings, friendships, romance.. Same time it throws a light on the relationships.. some life lessons about friendships! I think characters of Jake, Matt and Alysia are so real and I hope my daughter learns through this book…
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews