American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Summer 2025 BOOK REVIEW
by Jay Hardwig
Reviewed by Barbara Cheadle
From the Editor: Barbara Cheadle is the founding president of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC) and the founding editor of Future Reflections. She is a librarian with a special interest in children’s books that portray blind characters.
Just Maria
by Jay Hardwig
Regal House Publishing, LLC Raleigh, NC 27612
Copyright 2022
ISBN: 978-1646030828
Available from Bookshare.org and from NLS BARD as DB125548
This lively little book for and about middle schoolers is engaging, with a snappy pace. It manages to educate and debunk a lot of myths about blindness, seamlessly and without a hint of preachiness.
Just Maria was written by Jay Hardwig, a veteran teacher and orientation and mobility instructor of blind children. Within the context of the plot, the book provides details about how twelve-year-old, sixth-grader Maria Romero learns to travel safely with her folding white cane, “Roxie,” under the instruction of her cane travel instructor, Mr. Torres. Mr. Torres teaches Maria to “use your cane and your brain, and figure it out.”
The first chapter, intriguingly with just the right hint of shock value, is called “Undies.” Right away we learn that not all blind kids are alike. Sam, one of Maria’s blind friends, grosses her out when she discovers that he doesn’t bother to put away his clean undies—he just gives them the sniff test to find the clean ones if they get mixed up with the dirty laundry. Maria thinks he’s just lazy. She likes to have a place for everything, and everything in its place; she lives her life “by the book.”
Maria is conflicted about wanting more independence and also fearing it. Although Maria is twelve, it was only a few months ago that her mom finally was willing to leave her alone in the house while she runs errands or stops by the gym for a workout. Frustrated, Maria muses that “sooner or later, she’s going to have to let me grow up a little.”
Maria is also afraid of being cut loose and becoming a “Maria pancake” if she fails to cross a street perfectly without Mr. Torres by her side to correct her. She lives only four blocks from a bakery, but she has never gone there by herself, or even crossed a street alone. Mr. Torres says it won’t be long, but Maria still hangs back.
Above all, Maria yearns to be accepted—or at least not rejected and outright snubbed—by the popular kids, especially Hannah, cheerleader, teacher’s pet, and ringleader of the popular girls. “I don’t expect to be queen bee or anything,” Maria reflects to herself, “but I’d at least like to be a part of the hive. Is that so wrong?”
It’s not that she likes Hannah that much. After all, the only time Hannah is nice to her is when the teachers are around. It’s just, well, it’s hard being stereotyped as The Blind Kid when all she wants is to be “just Maria.”
One thing is sure: Maria is certain that hanging out with her next-door neighbor and classmate, weird JJ Munson, “King Geek of the sixth grade” will not enhance her chances of being accepted into Hannah’s popular circle of friends. But she doesn’t have much choice. JJ is determined to be her friend and to pull her into his weird schemes, like being his partner in the Twinnogins Superhero Detective Agency. It doesn’t make it any easier that her single-parent mom insists that she be kind to JJ. And Maria does reluctantly admire JJ for his gentle, genuine affection for and cheerful acceptance of his little sister, Cynthia, who is nonverbal and autistic and attends a special school. It is Cynthia who ultimately provides the circumstance for the Twinnoggins Detective Agency’s one and only case. That case provides just the challenge Maria needs to face her fears, use the travel skills she’s learned, exert her independence, and discover it’s okay to “zig where others zag.”
At first I was skeptical of the plot line—another kids-become-detectives storyline (roll my eyes). Not only does it work, but it has some interesting twists. Spoiler alert: JJ actually succeeds in luring a reluctant Maria into his detective scheme, but they only ever actually solve one mystery. Most of the action and development of the story comes from JJ’s insistence that they must prove themselves worthy of the title “detectives.” He insists that they give each other four challenges to test “our mind and mettle, our moxie.”
The chapters carrying the plot are interspersed with chapters about blindness. These chapters are brief but informative, presented in Maria’s voice and perspective, and they complement the plot. Early in the book Maria tells us about her “Crabby-Abby Days Top Ten List of the Most Annoying Things About Being Blind.” The list includes things such as, “People who think I’m amazing,” and the “Can you guess who this is?” game. This list is divided into four parts and makes up four of the chapters. And there also are four chapters that address “Things you might be wondering,” such as Braille, Maria’s white cane (Roxie), how she became blind (retinoblastoma), and the question she gets most often: “Do you wish you could see?” (“No, not really.”)
I recommend this book as a good read for any child or adult (I’m a big fan of youth literature), but I especially like the way the common questions and misunderstandings about blindness are addressed and integrated into the story.