Find Your Crowd, Rock the Risk: A Review of “Maggie’s Big Break”
“Maggie’s Big Break” follows 11-year-old Maggie Pearson, who wants to become an actor and has a stutter. When Maggie and her best friend Francesca are accepted into Danbury’s, a school for acting and the arts, Maggie must navigate friendship, her love of entertainment, and discrimination.
A safe space
When Jennifer Dickinson attended a writers’ workshop for women in 2015, she wrote for the first time about her childhood experiences with stuttering. She had never felt safe enough to be so vulnerable, but to her surprise, her writing resonated with the group. That idea for “Maggie’s Big Break” was born. Dickinson returned to it in 2019, but writing took much longer than she expected. Putting words on paper was more challenging than usual for Dickinson, mostly because she based Maggie’s character on her own, often negative and painful, experiences at school, such as losing her best friend or being bullied because of her speech difference. She also wanted to avoid typical stereotypes, such as “the pitiful disabled person,” used to teach children they must be nice to disabled kids simply because they have a disability.
The importance of role models
Maggie is a self-confident young girl who sees her disability as part of her identity, and she has a role model: fictional popular actor Lucy Cortez, who also happens to have a stutter. Having someone to look up to is not just important for the story, but for finding your identity as a young disabled person in general. For Dickinson, this was the main factor driving the story. The character of actor Lucy Cortez is loosely based on Emily Blunt, who openly speaks about stuttering. What Lucy Cortez is to Maggie Blunt is to Dickinson as well. “She made the speech difference visible and proved that one still can become a successful actor anyway,” Dickinson shares. “I want children like Maggie to feel empowered and to know there are people like them out there who did make it.” What makes the novel really stand out is that the friction between Maggie and some of the other children isn’t solely linked to her disability. Of course, it is part of them, and those who don’t like her, or are jealous of her, would touch on it to hurt her, but the actual problems are just the same ones that would probably happen in any middle school.
Disability isn’t be-all and end-all
For instance, when Francesca turns her back on Maggie for a cooler, trendier, more experienced actor, Valentina reminds us of regular teenage challenges. Disability plays a minor role, even as Francesca convinces Valentina that Maggie is a career killer because of her disability. However, the main attention is on Maggie’s hurt feelings about her friend betraying her trust. And let’s face it: This is, after all, a real-life problem most disabled children, teens, and young adults will face eventually: those people telling them what they cannot do. And this book offers coping strategies, responses, and teaches resilience, which is often lacking for many disabled kids.
“Maggie’s Big Break“ addresses the elephant in the room: Ableism is present throughout the entertainment industry. But instead of only talking about the issues, this novel also offers easy-to-understand solutions for children and may empower them if they aim to pursue a career in a competitive industry later in life.
Rock the risk
One of the pieces of advice in the book is Maggie’s father’s slogan he invented before he died: Rock the risk! It means trying things out and not being afraid to fail. These three words mean so much, particularly to disabled people, because disabled people are often not allowed to fail. They are always “protected” and cannot make any independent decisions, whether good or bad ones. Being able to experience failure is important for growing, learning, and becoming better. It’s part of a child’s development. So it’s crucial this novel understands and shares that important message.
The second most important solution is: Find your crowd. Community is important. Allies are needed to face ableism together.
And finally, and the most crucial lesson of all: Accept the fact that these people will always exist! Valentinas are everywhere. It’s about how we deal with them. In one scene of the book, Valentina launches a social media attack on Maggie, who must decide whether to give up or stand up for herself and move on. And that’s the main message of the novel: There will always be ableism, there’ll always be competition, but we will get through it by believing in ourselves, our communities, and our talent, and just keep on rocking the risk.
