What’s up with Normal?

In the past few years, I’ve noticed quite a few fiction titles for middle grade and middle school readers have the word NORMAL in their titles. Here’s a list to help everyone keep them straight!

Back to Normal by Kate Klise (2008 – Scholastic)
Chasing Normal by Lisa Papademetrious (2008 – Hyperion)
Deliver Us From Normal by Kate Klise (2005 – Scholastic)
Far From Normal by Kate Klise (2006 – Scholastic)
The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon (2008 – Knopf)
Looking for Normal by Betty Monthei (2005 – HarperCollins)
Not Exactly Normal by Devin Brown (2005 – Eerdmans)
Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor (2008 – HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen)

And, of course there is the wonderful nonfiction, It’s Perfectly Normal, and the YA Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters (2000 – Little Brown.)

I wonder if we collectively feel unsettled and abnormal and thus must find some way to either explain our abnormality or to rein