The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The title “Hazel’s Theory of Evolution” is written at the top in large green writing. The author’s name “Lisa Jenn Bigelow” is written lower right of the cover, in small black writing. Above it, the phrase “Author of ‘Drum Roll, Please’” in smaller black writing. The background is cream with green leaves around the edges and title. Bottom centre of the cover, art of a young orange haired girl holding a dog. The dog is white and brown. The girl is wearing a blue long-sleeved jumper and red glasses. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Bullying
• Miscarriage
• Pregnancy
• Infertility
• Acephobia

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Summary:

Perfect for fans of The Thing About Jellyfish and Raymie Nightingale, this tender middle grade novel from Lisa Jenn Bigelow, acclaimed author of Drum Roll, Please, follows a precocious girl whose life is turned upside down in her last year of middle school.

Hazel knows a lot about the world. That’s because when she’s not hanging with her best friend or helping her two moms care for the goats on their farm, she loves reading through dusty encyclopedias. But even Hazel doesn’t have answers for the questions awaiting her as she enters eighth grade. How can she make friends in a new school where no one seems to understand her? What’s going to happen to one of her moms who’s pregnant again after having two miscarriages? Why does everything have to change when life was already perfectly fine?

As Hazel struggles to cope, she’ll come to realize that sometimes you have to look within yourself—instead of the pages of a book—to find the answers to life’s most important questions.

Hazel’s Theory of Evolution is a genuine, thoughtful, and ultimately uplifting novel about learning to flourish no matter what changes life throws your way.

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Notes:

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook/Kindle version.

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Archivist Comments:

The MC in this is a young questioning aroace girl in her last year of middle-school. She has two moms, and one of her two new friends is a young boy in a wheelchair. There’s a wide variety of diversity of characters in this book, but people have said that they like that they aren’t treated as plot points. There are simply allowed to exist freely in the narrative.

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