Parental Divorce and Socioecological Resilience in Big and Little Questions (According to Wren Joe Byrd)

Abstract

This study explores the tween’s socio-ecological resilience in the face of parental divorce in Middle Grade American novel, Big and Little Questions (According to Wren Jo Byrd). The text employs Ungar’s theoretical lens of socioecological to explore the tween protagonist, Wren’s resilience in the face of parental divorce. The textual analysis of selected excerpts is based on analytical framework of Catherine Belsey which is a qualitative and interpretive strategy of analyzing texts. The study examines the tween’s negotiation of her adversity through culturally relevant resources. This analysis reveals that in the absence of relational resources the tween asserts her agency and negotiates for culturally attuned symbolic resources of dictionary, diary and digital support system. She achieves resilience through assertion of agency, negotiation of relational support, seeking peer integration and parental validation, and acknowledging her fragmented familial reality.  Moreover, she focuses on textual symbols and metaphors as a means of critique of social discourses which ignore emotional needs of the tween and overburden her with adult responsibilities. The study concludes that middle grade fiction holds significant potential for illuminating the socio-ecological dimensions of resilience.

Keywords: Parental divorce, MG fiction, tween, socio-ecological resilience, relational resources, critique of divorce discourses.