One of the scenes that I most enjoyed was the one where Ellen goes to register for classes.

After years living in the same place and going to school with the same set of students, Ellen perfected her invisibility, but moving to Salmon Arm changes all that and forces her to cope with the experience of being the new one in town. Too tall, too smart, and too out of touch with the things that other students her age enjoy, Ellen feels that she will never fit in and so does her best to become “invisible”. Never did she expect that moving to Salmon Arm with her parents would expose her to a whole new range of experiences and the chance to finally find friendship and love.Īny girl who has ever been the awkward, shy, smart girl who always sits at the back of the room in class can relate to Ellen. When her father suddenly realizes that life is too fleeting to waste doing a job he feels no passion for and decides to move to the Interior to run a resort with Ellen’s mom, Ellen believes they are being selfish and ruining her chances by taking her away from the program she worked so hard to get into. Brainy and shy, Ellen has little interest in the things that the other girls at school go mad for–boys, fashion, dancing–she’d much rather spend her time in a lab learning something new. Ellen dreams of becoming a medical researcher, but in 1967, girls are not expected to be interested in the sciences, let along enroll in accelerated programs to prepare for university.

The Way It Is by Donalda Reid