Many of us, when asked to remember our middle school experience, shudder. It’s almost always a challenging era, full of braces, puberty, social dramas, and the diametric pulls of childhood and young adulthood.

But Greenhills School teacher and theater director Caroline Huntoon, who grew up in Ann Arbor, spends a good deal of her time imagining and remembering being that age again, as evidenced by the release of her third (and newest) middle grade novel, Going Overboard.

“It’s this moment when young people are figuring out their independence, while also negotiating, like, ‘I want to be independent, I want to be in charge of my own self, but I don’t always make the best choices,’” Huntoon said.

In addition, when Huntoon was a young reader themself, they were drawn most to middle grade books.

“I loved reading Matilda [by Roald Dahl] and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine,” said Huntoon. “I feel like those books just opened up a world to me—not ‘the’ world, but ‘a’ world. My mom got sick when I was in fifth grade, so books were a very important … reprieve from that time.”

Following on the heels of their two previous middle grade books that feature young trans and nonbinary characters—Skating on Mars and Linus and Etta Could Use a Win—Huntoon’s latest tells the story of a nonbinary sixth grader named Piper, who decides ze has no choice but to team up with an unpleasant classmate, Colton, in order to break up their moms’ budding romance while on a cruise.

If that sounds like an inside-out take on The Parent Trap, you’re not wrong.

“The fantasy of the agency that kids have [in that story]—that feels really exciting,” Huntoon said. “Like, ‘We can do something. We can change something.’”

To execute this plan, Piper and Colton misbehave, doing things like venturing into the cruise ship’s dangerous, off-limits engine room, getting into arguments with each other, and sneaking paprika into their moms’ iced teas.

But this left Huntoon with a storytelling challenge: How do you keep readers feeling connected to, and rooting for, a main character who seems to be sabotaging a devoted single parent’s chance at love?

“I got in big trouble when I sent [the manuscript] to my editor, and she was like, ‘I love the concept, I love the idea, but Piper’s really mean,’” Huntoon said. “I was like, OK, let me sit with that for a little bit,’ and of course, she was right. … You want to make sure you justify what [your character] is doing, and you want to make sure the audience wants to be on board with Piper.”

As a result, Piper was softened a bit in the editing process. Colton, meanwhile, initially seems like a villain, but as both Piper and the reader get to know him, we come to see that his past words and actions had often been misinterpreted.

“I feel like Piper has a really clear and inaccurate view of him,” said Huntoon. “The way ze discovers who Colton really is, and how he exists in the world felt really, like—that was run to explore.”

While celebrating the release of Going Overboard—on Thursday, June 5 at 6:30 pm at Schuler Books—Huntoon is also now at work on both a young adult novel and, with an artist collaborator, a graphic novel book proposal.

But adult fiction doesn’t seem in the cards these days.

“I will usually write a chapter or two, and then I’ll be like, ‘Just kidding! I’m gonna go back to writing for young people,’” Huntoon said. “But maybe someday.”

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music. 

Caroline Huntoon celebrates the release of "Going Overboard" on Thursday, June 5, at 6:30 pm at Schuler Books, Westgate Shopping Center, 2513 Jackson Avenue, Ann Arbor.

Related:
➥ "Snark Demons, Puppy Dog Boys & How to Human: Ypsi author Caroline Huntoon talks about their middle-grade novel 'Linus and Etta Could Use a Win'" [Pulp, October 7, 2024]
➥ "Ice Capades & Identity: Caroline Huntoon’s 'Skating on Mars' follows a nonbinary middle schooler trying to find their place in the world" [Pulp, June 12, 2023]