Okay for Now

Okay for Now

• Genre: Fiction; middle-grade humorous coming of age
• Originally Published: 2011
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 850L; grades 5-8
• Structure/Length: 10 chapters; approx. 368 pages; approx. 9 hours, 17 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Middle school student and baseball fan Doug Swieteck moves to a new town after his father loses his job. Although he faces challenges at his new school and with his alcoholic father, he also meets supportive adults at the local library and a girl named Lil who becomes his girlfriend.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Domestic abuse; alcoholism; post-war post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Gary D. Schmidt, Author

• Bio: Born in Hicksville, New York, in 1957; earned a PhD in medieval literature; works as an English professor at Calvin College; diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1996; says the other cancer patients he met during treatment serve as inspiration for future novels; won a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor in 2005 for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and a was National Book Award finalist for three books: Okay for Now, Orbiting Jupiter, and Pay Attention, Carter Jones
• Other Works: Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004); First Boy (2005); The Wednesday Wars (2007); Orbiting Jupiter (2015); Pay Attention, Carter Jones (2019); Just Like That (2021)
• Awards: National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (finalist; 2011); Notable Children’s Books (2012)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• The Cycle of Abuse
• Prejudice Against the Poor
• The Cost of Alcoholism

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the social and historical contexts regarding abuse that incite Doug’s conflict.
• Analyze paired texts and other resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Abuse, Prejudice, and Alcoholism.
• Plan and construct an artistic rendering of Audubon’s drawings, explaining how it aligns with personal traits based on details from the novel.
• Analyze and evaluate plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding setting, masculinity, and other topics.