Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo with her best friend, Grace. Lacey is ready to reinvent herself at her new school, but middle school never works out exactly as you plan it.
This is the plot of the new middle-grade novel, “When You’re Brave Enough,” by Austin author Rebecca Bendheim.
Bendheim taught middle school for years before writing this book, and said that was part of why she focused on this age group in her debut.
The book is the debut novel from Rebecca Bendheim, who was inspired by her own time teaching middle school for the story. Courtesy of Rebecca Bendheim
“The reason that I decided to write a queer middle grade novel specifically is that I had my first crushes on girls when I was around early middle school,” she said. “And that’s also the time that I first learned what the word ‘lesbian’ meant, because this girl in my school spread this rumor about these girls who were lesbians. I asked what that meant, and she said, ‘they worship the devil,’ and I should steer clear from them as a new student because they might corrupt me.”
Bendheim didn’t come out until she was 20, and she said it’s very common for LGBTQ teens to know who they are long before they tell others.
“I think about this time in my life a lot. I think of my queer students,” she said. “I really wanted to write a story where a girl has a crush on her best friend and it’s not this worst nightmare, hide-this-forever situation. It becomes this beautiful first chance at love.”
Lacey is in the school musical and worried about her first kiss. Bendheim said she wanted to give her protagonist the lead because she loved theater as a kid but never got to play a starring role.
“I had them play the musical ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ in the book because I was in ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ in fourth grade and again in eighth grade. And when I was in it in fourth grade, the couple, Rosie and Albert, kissed in the final performance,” she said. “And I was terrified thinking, what if I, when I’m an eighth-grader, have to do that and I don’t like the person who’s my co-lead? And so that fear stayed with me and I gave it to Lacey.”
And while much of this book is set in Rhode Island, Bendheim also included plenty of nods to Austin. Because while Lacey is excited for a fresh start, she can’t stop thinking about home.
“There’s a scene where they’re at the South Congress Bridge watching the bats,” Benheim said “There’s another scene in Barton Springs where they are playing a game and they’re pretending to drown and then save each other, but then she starts actually getting scared and Grace is the only one who can tell it’s for real and helps her breathe through that. So she’s slowly realizing that her feelings for Grace are more complicated than she thought through these memories of being in Texas.”
Bendheim said she hopes this book gets into the hands of queer kids and teens who need to see someone like them having a happy ending right there in middle school.
“I hope other kids and teams read it and kind of get a window into what their peers might be dealing with,” she said. “I also hope adults read this book. There are a lot of misconceptions about queer kids right now and I just would love adults to read this and be reminded that these are just kids, just like any other kid who are trying to figure out how to make their way in the world — sometimes making mistakes, sometimes changing their mind, but that they deserve all of the support and agency and love and patience that you would give any kid.”
