Allergic

The novel’s protagonist, Maggie Wilson, is a 10-year-old girl, and one of her main struggles during the story is figuring out how to accept change. In addition, she must learn that not all change is bad. As the novel opens, one of her strongest feelings is an aversion to change. She must attend a new school, where she knows no one, because of school zoning changes. She’s also about to have a new sibling, and she knows this will change her family dynamic but doesn’t believe this change will be a good thing. When her mother is about to go into labor, she tells Maggie that the change the new baby brings may not be a bad thing, but Maggie remains unconvinced. By the end of the novel, she has found a friend at school and has forged a strong bond with her baby sister. While she never specifically says so, her environment and the changes have been a good thing for her. She learns to accept what she hasn’t been able to mold to her own preferences and discovers unexpectedly good things during this process.

Maggie is imperfect in her relationships but does demonstrate a proclivity for caretaking. When the novel opens, she desperately wants a puppy so that she can be the most important person in the life of someone. When she learns that she can’t have a puppy because of her allergies, she tries to find other pets she can care for, and she rejects frogs and toads because she can’t touch them. She wants to nurture whichever pet she adopts. Finally, she adopts a mouse that then has babies, proves that she can take care of them, and proves that she has enormous self-control when she abstains from holding the baby mice because holding them would be bad for them. Later, when her sister is born, Maggie is reluctant to accept her. When she holds her, however, she remembers the ways that people have nurtured her, and she does the same things for June, calming the baby in the process. In the last chapter, the illustrator depicts numerous ways that Maggie cares for her new sister, and as the story ends, Maggie’s caretaking is rewarded as her sister toddles toward her, calling her name.

Deep and strong emotions frequently overcome Maggie during the novel. As the novel opens, she declares that this day, her 10th birthday, will be the “best” of her life because she’s getting a puppy. Maggie thinks largely in absolutes, and this is the first instance of that in the novel. When she starts her first day at her new school, she declares that this day will be the “worst” day of her life because as a fifth grader, she doesn’t want to start a new school where she won’t know anyone. Later, she meets Claire, who proves loyal when sixth graders question why she’d be friends with a fifth grader. Maggie believes Claire is a “perfect” friend. Because Maggie thinks in absolutes, her emotions are frequently volatile, and she’s unable to accept bad things, thinking they can have no redeeming aspect. By the novel’s end, she has started to see the good in aspects of life that she previously considered awful. Her mother frequently helps her take deep breaths, and Maggie’s heart is often depicted as pounding. These instances illustrate that Maggie has struggled with such issues for a long time. She’s learning how to deal with them, however, as evident when she runs to her mother when her mother is leaving for the hospital and reminds her to take deep breaths, which shows that Maggie has internalized the coping mechanisms her mother taught her.

Additionally, Maggie often denies science and the facts in order to get what she wants. This is largely because her emotions are strong and she wants to follow her desires. When she’s first exposed to the puppy and has an allergic reaction, she hopes that it’s an illness. When she undergoes allergy tests, she tries to use willpower to avoid a reaction, thinking she can overcome her allergy with her mind. When she decides to adopt a mouse despite being told that any animal with fur or feathers would be harmful to her, she shows that she believes she knows better than the experts. She denies the reactions she’s having and showers frequently to try to overcome them. Somewhere inside, however, she realizes the foolishness of her endeavor because in a daydream, she imagines her friend Sebastian telling her that she can’t “overcome science.” Ultimately, she accepts her allergy and finds a new way to achieve her goals: Instead of becoming a veterinarian, she decides to become a marine biologist because she isn’t allergic to sea life.