Just Maria is the story of Maria Romero, a blind sixth-grader who is
trying her hardest to be normal. Not amazing. Not inspiring. Not
helpless. Not weird. Just normal. Normal is hard enough with her white
cane, glass eyes, and bumpy books, but Maria's task is complicated by
her neighbor and classmate JJ Munson, an asthmatic overweight oddball
known in the halls of Marble City Middle as a double-dork paste-eater.
When JJ draws Maria into his latest hare-brained scheme--a series of
public challenges to prove their worth as gumshoes for his Twinnoggin
Detective Agency--she fears she's lost her last chance to go unnoticed.
When a young girl goes missing on the streets of Marble City, Maria's
new-found confidence is tested in ways she never anticipated. Use your
cane and your brain, and figure it out . . . Aimed at middle-grade
readers, Just Maria explores difference and disability without
resorting to the saccharine and engages universal themes about the price
of popularity and the meaning of independence.