When You Reach Me

Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me. Wendy Lamb Books, 2009. Tr. $15.99, ISBN 978-0-385-73742-5.

What’s it about?

When sixth-grader Miranda’s best friend Sal gets punched by a strange kid, the unprovoked attack somehow unravels their friendship. Shortly after, Miranda receives the first of a series of mysterious notes that hint at an impending tragedy she must help prevent.  

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It’s 1978 in New York City, and two childhood friends, Sal and Miranda, know the safest route to and from school, and know to avoid the Laughing Man, who rants “bookbag, pocketshoe” and likes to sleep under a mailbox.  Miranda’s world changes forever when her friend Sal is sucker-punched by a strange boy one day. After the unprovoked attack, Sal suddenly starts to shut her out of his life. Shortly after, Miranda begins receiving strange, cryptic notes that appear to be from someone who knows things he or she couldn’t possibly know.  Miranda is terrified, especially when her mother’s emergency spare key is stolen.  In the meantime, Miranda meets the boy, Marcus, who punched Sal “just to see what would happen.” Marcus is unusual. He sees her battered copy of A Wrinkle in Time, her favorite books, and begins a head-spinning argument about time travel. Meanwhile, Miranda navigates 6^th grade friendship drama (and discovers the impact she makes through small acts of kindness) and begins to put the pieces of the mysterious notes together. When something terrible happens, everything finally makes sense.

This thoughtful, powerful novel, which is in the form of a letter addressed to the note writer, unfolds quietly until its dramatic final act. Some readers may already know what will happen, but it doesn’t make it any less painful or poignant.  The way the story is told, in a non-linear fashion, adds to the mystery. Incorporating discussion about the plot elements of the classic A Wrinkle in Time adds to richness of this book. Stead weaves numerous subplots into this slim volume, and makes them all relate to the main plot. There is no unnecessary exposition.  There is so much going on that readers will probably want to re-read the book, but this is not due to Stead creating an obscure or incomprehensible story—readers will want to revisit the story to delight in how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, to marvel in Stead’s genius. This is a stunning, satisfying book that will appeal to a wide audience.

Genre label: Contemporary Realistic Fiction with a dash of Science-Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-9

Subjects: Latch-key kids, Working class families, Single mothers, Time-travel, Friendship

Awards:

Newbery Medal Winner (2010)

Read-alikes:

L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time

Snyder’s The Egypt Game

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

Yee, Lisa. Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time. Scholastic, 2005. Paperback $5.99, ISBN-13 978-0-439-62248-6.

What’s it about?

Stanford Wong, star basketball player, in danger of failing the sixth grade and being off the team, must miss basketball camp, take summer school and endure the humiliation of his nemesis Millicent Min tutoring him.  

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Stanford Wong is looking forward to going to a highly reputable basketball camp and being the only seventh grader to be on the A-team at school.  He feels that his life is over when his English teacher, Mr. Glick, tells him he will fail sixth grade if he doesn’t take English in summer school. As if this isn’t bad enough, Stanford must miss basketball camp to take summer school. He may even be off the basketball team if he doesn’t pass. Plus, his parents are fighting, his work-a-holic father is perpetually disappointed in him, and his beloved grandmother Yin-Yin is sent to a depressing nursing home. Could things be worse? Yes—Stanford must also suffer the indignity of being tutored by Millicent Min, a snotty eleven-year-old genius who is already taking college courses. He fears losing his friends and new girlfriend, Millicent’s friend Emily Ebers if they find out he is taking summer school. He and Millicent craft a lie that protects Stanford’s secret (that he struggle in school) and Millie’s secret (that she is a genius), but threatens their friendships with Emily.  

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time is an accessible and funny book about a likeable under-achiever. It is not necessary to have read Millicent Min, Girl Genius to enjoy Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, but it is hilarious to see how different the same events look to these very different protagonists. Stanford comes across as a bit of a jerk in from Millicent’s perspective, but he is far more sensitive than she imagines. He certainly doesn’t see himself as the handsome, popular big-shot he is portrayed as. Instead, Stanford always feels on edge about his social status, which wasn’t always good. He is secret stress-knitter. He watches Sesame Street with his taciturn friend Stretch (who is so self-conscious about his voice change that he never speaks.) At the same time, Stanford is a very talented athlete with a tight-knit group of friends (and a frenemy, the mean-spirited and trouble Digger).  This book may appeal more to boys, with its fart jokes and guy humor, but its humor and sensitive portrayal of Stanford will also appeal to girls.

Genre: Humor, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Friendship Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade 

Interest level: Grades 4-7

Subjects: School, Grades, Basketball, Family, Friends, Parental disapproval, Self-esteem, Popularity

Read-alikes:

Korman’s No More Dead Dogs

Series information:   

Millicent Min, Girl Genius

So Totally Emily Ebers 

Hidden

Frost, Helen. Hidden. Frances Foster Books, 2011. Tr. $16.99 , ISBN 978-0-374-38221-6.

What’s it about?

Two girls, Darra and Wren, meet at a summer camp and remember what happened six years ago, when Darra’s father stole a gold minivan without knowing Wren was in the backseat. The girls swallow these secrets and avoid each other—until they are paired together in a lifesaving class.

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When Wren was eight, she was kidnapped by Darra’s father when he stole her family’s gold minivan.  It wasn’t an intentional kidnapping—in fact, Darra’s father West didn’t even know she’d been in the van. Darra discovers Wren, terrified, hiding in the boat. Darra leaves her food and water, and helps her remain hidden. Wren manages to escape through a cat door, and Darra’s father is shortly after arrested. The two girls re-unite at a summer camp six years later, unwilling to talk about the first time they met.  Their hopes of getting through camp without interacting are dashed when they are paired together for a lifesaving exercise. Wren has flashbacks of the kidnapping and nearly drowns Darra. After this, the girls are able to face each other and talk about what happened. Wren hears Darra’s anger at losing her father to incarceration, and Darra hears how terrified Wren was during her ordeal.

 Hidden is a beautifully written, quick-paced novel in verse with a compelling plot: crime victim facing the daughter of the man who victimized her. This story is not all about Wren’s perspective, however, it is told in the alternating voices of Wren and Darra. Wren’s voice forms short stanzas of free verse, and Darra’s is more stream-of-consciousness, forming very long stanzas of very long lines. Frost states that she invented this form for this book. There is a hardness to Darra’s voice, a toughness that softens a bit after she and Wren become friends.  By the end of Hidden, both girls recognize they were both victims, and don’t blame each other for what happened.

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Novel in Verse

Subjects: Poetry, Kidnapping, Summer Camps, Friendship, Crime Victims, Forgiveness

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 6-10

Read-alikes:

Chaltas’ Because I am Furniture

Sones’ Stop Pretending

Sones’ What My Mother Doesn’t Know

Wayland’s Girl Coming in for a Landing

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Berk, Josh. The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin. Borzoi, 2010. Tr. $16.99 ISBN 978-0-375-85699-0

What’s it about?

Will Halpin, a hefty deaf high school student attends a “mainstream” high school. When one of his fellow students, a morally bankrupt son of a casino owner, Pat Chambers, falls to his death on a field trip to the local coal mine where Halpin’s own great-uncle “Dummy” Halpin died, he and his buddy Devon Smiley solve the case.

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Will Halpin, an expert lip-reader and amateur sleuth, whose IM handle is “Hamburger Halpin” is attending a mainstream high school after years of deaf school—and while he is finding the social lives of his fellow students intriguing and rich in irony, he wishes he wasn’t the butt of jokes, along with his new friend Devon Smiley, who is on the bottom of the social heap, so low on the food chain, that “even teachers and C-listers rip on him.” Will begins to fall for a beautiful, popular girl Leigha, who appears to be beaten by her bully boyfriend, the popular and morally bankrupt Pat Chambers. When Will’s class takes a field trip to visit the local coal mines, and Pat falls to his death, there are numerous suspects. Will and Devon team together to solve the crime, and their exploits place them in the thick of the investigation—and under suspicion.

This is one of darker, funnier books I’ve read in the past few years. Will has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and has a keen eye for the social drama in others’ lives and writes his sarcastic observations in a notebook. His humorous IM and text exchanges with Devon further add levity to this black comedy. Will’s narration is strong, and never self-pitying. The reader will find his letter to Leigha both naïve and hilarious.  There are many moment in this book where I cringed and laughed at the same time. This is a timely novel, filled with pop culture and technological references, but the themes of disability, crime, corruption and friendship are timeless.

Genre:  Humor, Mystery, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Reading level: Grades 5-6

Interest level: Grades 6-12

Subjects: Crime, Deafness, Friendship, Popularity, High School

Read alikes:

Edmond’s Happyface

Schmidt’s Okay for Now

Bray’s Going Bovine 

King’s Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Babysitter's Club Graphic Novel: Kristy's Great Idea

Telgemeier, Raina. The Baby Sitters Club: Kristy’s Great Idea. Graphix, 2006. Paperback $8.99 ISBN-10 0-439-73933-0

What’s it about?

Kristy Thomas and her friends are baby-sitting pros. Kristy gets an idea that will increase their business—forming a Baby-Sitters Club, where parents need to place just one call to find a group of experienced babysitters.

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 This graphic novel adaptation of the first Baby-sitter’s Club book (BSC) in the popular, long-lived series which began in the late eighties, is not just about babysitting. Babysitting is the backdrop of the lives of four girls, Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey, each with their own private dramas, like divorce, the death of a parent, diabetes, crushes, sibling rivalry and family pressure. This story centers around Kristy’s experiences, with the central drama being her parent’s divorce. Kristy is vehemently opposed to her mother remarrying, and initially refuses to have anything to do with her mother’s fiancé, Watson, and his children Karen and Andrew. When Mary Ann babysits for them (because Kristy won’t), she writes in a Baby-sitter’s Club log that the kids are cute, and that Kristy would like them if she gave them a chance. Eventually, Kristy warms up to the idea of her mother remarrying. Another sub-plot in this graphic novel is the friendship between the four girls, which becomes strained when some girls feel that the jobs aren’t being evenly distributed.

All told, this is a very tween-friendly graphic novel that portrays a group of pre-teen friends starting their own business. The story-telling is light-hearted and humorous, and the darker elements aren’t heavy-handed.  The girls’ response to Stacey’s diabetes is relief that she is not anorexic, a somewhat puzzling reaction, since both are serious and potentially life-threatening conditions. What carries these girls through their struggles, including jealousy and resentment, is the high value place on their friendship. Friendship is a central theme of this graphic novel, as well as the series it is based upon. This is a positive, upbeat book, and while some of the heavier elements are wrapped up a little too neatly in an after-school special sort of manner, the deft, appealing artwork and the fast-paced, readable dialog makes this an enjoyable read for tween girls.

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Humor

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 3-6

Read-alikes:

McDonald’s The Sisters Club

Myracle’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen

Naylor’s Alice series

Subjects: Friendship, Family, Divorce, Baby-sitting, Tween girls, Entrepreners

Series information:

The Baby-Sitters Club: The Truth About Stacy (BSC Graphix, 2006)

The Baby-Sitters Club: Mary Anne Saves The Day (BSC Graphix, 2007)

 The Baby-Sitters Club: Claudia and Mean Janine (BSC Graphix, 2008)

Characters:

Kristy—tomboyish, impulsive mastermind of the Baby-Sitter’s Club

Claudia—creative and fun-loving, with a phone in her room and a Grammar-Nazi sister

Mary Anne—shy and studious, and being raised by her strict single father

Stacey—new to Stonybrook, a friendly girl recently diagnosed with diabetes

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

Blume, Judy. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2000 (c.1977). Tr. $18.99  ISBN-10: 0689840896 ISBN-13: 978-0689840890

What’s it about? The year is 1947, and 10-year-old Sally J. Freedman is convinced that Hitler is alive—and in Miami Beach, masquerading as an old Jewish man named Mr. Zavodsky.

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Sally is a ten-year-old Jewish girl from New Jersey who spends the school year away from her father in Miami Beach because of concerns about her older brother’s health. Sally has an active imagination, and loves to tell stories to herself, stories where she plays the lead role (usually as an actress or detective hunting Hitler). She misses her father, whom she nicknames “Doey Bird” and hates her new school, which has no bathroom doors, and a mean lunch monitor. Eventually, Sally adjusts and makes new friends. There is a dark shadow looming over Sally, though, and this is the specter of the Holocaust, which took the lives of her cousin Lila and aunt Rose.  Many of her fantasies feature the Holocaust, and when she suddenly realizes that her neighbor Mr. Zavodsky bears a resemblance to Hitler, she begins to believe he actually is Hitler in disguise, hiding in plain sight. 

This is a rich, often humorous novel with underlying dark tones. In many respects, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is an even stronger offering from Blume than her better known Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. While Sally doesn’t go through the same soul searching as Margaret does, this book explores serious topics such as the Holocaust through the eyes of a child touched by loss, though in a removed way.  Sally’s understanding of adults is touchingly naïve. When the sixteen-year-old daughter of her neighbors, who are Orthodox Jews, becomes pregnant, Sally is confused. “Buts she’s not married,” she points out. The book her mother gave her to explain sex presented pregnancy as something that only occurred between married couples. There are plenty of moments when older readers will see more to the situation than Sally does, although younger tweens may also misunderstand things like paying under the table.

Another serious topic, though dealt with in a removed way as well, is segregation. Sally grew up in New Jersey, and doesn’t understand why there are two different drinking fountains. She took a drink from a “colored” drinking fountain and was yanked away by a strange woman. Sally writes to her father, asking if black and white people have different germs or something. He responds by saying that he thinks people have more similarities than differences, and that the North isn’t much better than the South. In the North segregation was just more subtle than in the South, which was very candid about its racism. 

One criticism I have about this book, which is otherwise amazing, is the non-stop overuse of ellipses in conversations. I understand that Blume is trying to convey conversational pauses on the page, but readers already do this mentally, don’t they? It’s a stylistic complaint. . . . but it drives me nuts! . . . . I adore this book . . . so I can overlook this flaw. . .  

Genre: Historical Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Humor

Reading level: 4^th-5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-7

Subjects: Jewish-Americans, Moving, Friendship, Story-telling, Imagination

Read-alikes:

Yee’s So Totally Emily Ebers

Cleary’s Emily’s Runaway Imagination

Characters:

Sally J. Freedman—the imaginative protagonist, a 10-year-old storyteller

Arnold Freedman, aka Doey-Bird—Sally’s beloved dentist father

Louise Freedman—Sally’s anxious and neurotic mother

Douglas Freedman—Sally’s genius, loner brother whose health is fragile

Ma Fanny—Sally’s witty grandmother

Andrea—Sally’s close friend who lives in the same apartment complex; she is in 6^th grade and acts as though she is light years older than Sally, who is just a year younger

Georgia Blue Eyes—Andrea’s crush

Peter Hornstein—Teases Sally mercilessly, but Sally eventually realizes she likes him

Mr Zavodsky—Sally thinks he is not a nice, older Jewish man, but Adolf Hitler in disguise

So Totally Emily Ebers

Yee, Lisa. So Totally Emily Ebers. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007. Tr. $16.99 ISBN 978-0-439-83847-4

What’s it about?

Emily Ebers has just moved to Rancho Rosetta because of her parent’s divorce and meets a girl named Millicent Min on her volleyball team and a handsome basketball player named Stanford Wong.  These three lives intersect in hilarious and unexpected ways.  

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Emily Ebers’ parents recently divorced, and now Emily’s mom has moved her all the way to Rancho Rosetta California. Emily begins writing letters to her father, who is on tour with his band, the Talky Boys, updating him on her new life without him. She is having an interesting summer, including joining a volleyball team and making a new friend, meeting a cute boy that she develops a crush on, and seeing her controlled mom try on a new identity as a free-spirited hippie.  When Emily discovers that many people in her life are not what they appear to be, she is disillusioned. She learns to weather the tough times and to repair the relationships that matter.

This is largely a humorous tale, although there are plenty of more serious moments that occur when Emily realizes some people, including her father, are not being honest with her.  Emily’s disillusionment with her father, Millicent, and her frenemies is something a lot of tweens can relate to. Although this is painful for Emily, she comes out of these struggles stronger. She learns to discern between quality people and people that don’t genuinely care about her. Although she is initially flattered by the attention Julie, the queen bee in volleyball, is giving her, she realizes she is being used and ridiculed and stands up for herself. Emily is such a good-natured character that her anger (though justified!) is surprising. This book can be read as a stand-alone, although readers of Millicent Min, Girl Genius and/or Stanford Wong Flunks Out will gobble up this book, and readers who have started off with So Totally Emily Ebers will be eager to read about these events from the perspectives of Millicent and Stanford.  

Genre: Contemporary Realistic fiction, Humor, Friendship Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 5-7

Awards: Louisiana Young Reader’s Choice Awards Nominee, 2010

Read-alikes:

Danziger & Martin’s P.S. Longer Letter Later

Blume’s Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

Cabot’s Ally Finkle’s Rules for Girl series

Subject: Friendship, family relationships, divorce, popularity

Characters:

Emily: Effervescent protagonist, struggling to accept her parent’s divorce and adjusting to her new life in Rancho Rosetta, CA

Millicent: Emily’ new best friend, a funny girl being tutored by the brilliant Stanford Wong (or is she?)

Stanford: A handsome basketball player, the object of Emily’s affections, Millicent’s tutor (or is he?)

Alice Ebers: Emily’s mother, a journalist, hit hard by the divorce

Julie: A mean girl clique leader who wants to make-over Emily in her image 

David Ebers: Emily’s absentee father, on tour with the Talky Boys (or is he?)

Series information:

Millicent Min, Girl Genius

Stanford Wong Flunks Out

Best Friends and Drama Queens (Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #3)

Cabot, Meg. Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: Best Friends and Drama Queens. Scholastic, 2009. Tr. $15.99 ISBN 978-0-545-04043-3.

What’s it about?
When Allie comes back to school after winter break, she discovers she is no longer the new girl--there is a new girl Cheyenne, from Canada, who turns fourth grade into a comical boy/girl drama!  

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Not so long ago, Allie Finkle was the new girl at Pine Heights Elementary. Now a girl all the way from Canada is the new kid in town. Allie wants to make her feel welcome, but feels that Mrs. Hunter is asking a bit too much of her when she asks Allie to switch her seat to make room for the new girl. She plans to seat the new girl, Cheyenne, next to Allie’s friend Erica and place Allie in the back with Rosemary (who previously bullied Allie, but then became friends) and the rowdiest boys in the class.  Allie wants to please her favorite teacher, so she says yes. Allie and her friends are nice kids, so when they see Cheyenne all alone at recess, they invite her to play their favorite game. Cheyenne rudely replies that since they are in fourth grade, they are too old to play “babyish” games of pretend. Instead, she introduces the kissing game to the fourth grade. Then she insists that all the fourth graders pair up and start “going together.” Allie isn’t ready for this, but nor is she is ready to be the laughingstock of the fourth grade, with her new nickname “Big Baby Finkle.”

In the third book of the Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series, Allie is confronted with peer pressure and different type of bullying from what she faced in The New Girl. Her new classmate is pushing herself and her classmates into growing up. Kissing and going out are not usually high on the list of a fourth grader’s priorities, but they are high on Cheyenne’s list. She influences her peers to discard everything she thinks is “babyish,” and pushes them to do things most of them are not ready for, and don’t yet understand. Young tweens are confronted by this constantly, by the media and their peers, and it is refreshing to see that Allie remains a hold out. This isn’t easy for her to do, though. She is ridiculed, especially when she ends up being the only girl besides Rosemary to not “go out” with a boy, and ends up so upset that she shuts herself in a closet and bawls.  Allie is not a mindless conformist, but her feelings are as fragile as any other child’s. Hand this book to younger tween girls, especially those navigating the perilous waters of friendship, cliques, bullying and the pressure to grow up too soon.    

Series information:
#1 Moving Day
#2 The New Girl
#3 Best Friends and Drama Queens
#4 Stage Fright
#5 Glitter Girls & the Great Fake Out
#6 Blast from the Past

Read alikes:
Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series

Paula Danizger’s
Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and the Fudge series

For a slightly older audience: Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

For a slightly younger audience: Pennypacker’s Clementine series and Park’s Junie B. Jones series

Reading level: 5th grade

Interest level: Grades 3-5

Genre: Humor, Friendship Fiction, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Subjects: Friendship, cliques, maturity, popularity, rules

Characters:

Allie Finkle—the nine-year-old protagonist with a penchant for rules

Caroline—Allie’s best friend—the smartest girl in fourth grade

Sophie—Allie’s best friend—pretty and in love with “Prince Peter” a.k.a Peter Jacobs

Erica—Allie’s best friend and next-door neighbor—a spirited gymnast

Jay—Allie’s uncle, who is studying poetry in college

Kevin—Allie’s youngest brother, obsessed with pirates

Mark—Allie’s younger brother, obsessed with dirt bikes, bugs and sports

Mrs. Hunter—Allie’s teacher

Rosemary—Allie’s tough classmate, and foe-turned-friend of Allie  

Cheyenne—a boy-obsessed drama queen, who has little tolerance for girls who act like “babies”

The New Girl (Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #2)

Cabot, Meg. Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: The New Girl. Scholastic, 2008. Tr. $15.99 ISBN 978-0-545-04049-5.

What’s it about?

Being the new girl is not easy, as Allie Finkle, the new girl at Pine Heights Elementary, can attest.  While she makes new friends, one scary enemy, the biggest, toughest girl in the fourth grade, Rosemary Dawkins, makes life difficult for her.  

Find out more:

Allie Finkle is the new girl at Pine Heights Elementary, and while she loves her new teacher, Mrs. Hunter, and her new friends, Caroline, Erica and Sophie, who love to play the same games she enjoys, a bully, a big, tough girl named Rosemary Dawkins, teases her and threatens to beat her up. While Allie dodges Rosemary, and seeks out advice on how to deal with her from her friends and the adults in her life, she and her family are still adjusting to their new home. When Grandma comes to visit from out of town and sees that the family hasn’t received their stove yet, she orders them another one—but not the one Allie’s parents want. Feeling unappreciated, she storms out and goes to Allie’s Uncle Jay. Fortunately, Grandma’s ruffled feathers get smoothed out, and Allie gets exciting news—she finally gets to take home her new, prematurely born kitten Mewsette.  Allie’s mind is on taking care of Mewsie, so she lets her guard down regarding Rosemary. Following the advice of the janitor Mr. Elkhart, she begins to look at Rosemary in a new light.

The New Girl is a better book that the first Allie Finkle book Moving Day. The characters are more complex, and Allie is portrayed as a more thoughtful and mature kids than she was in the first book. The relationship between Allie’s grandmother and parents is interesting because it is a tense, complex relationship. The grandmother seems to have plenty of money and not a lot of patience. She expresses her frequent displeasure in passive-aggressive jibes. For instance, she tells Allie’s mother, “Don’t you look shapely, Elizabeth,” and when she hears Jay will meet them later, at dinner, she says, “Undergraduate students who are in their sixth year of taking poetry classes always have very important work to do, indeed.” She has a softer side, however, helping Allie care for her new kitten. By the end of the story, Rosemary turns out to be more complex than expected as well. The New Girl is a good exploration of friendship, bullying, and family relationships. This is a great book to hand to younger tween girls.  Allie is easy to relate to for this age group, because she is not a little girl, and still a long way from her teen years. Developmentally, she is beginning to form her own identity separate from her parents. She is actually mortified when her parents and grandmother come to her spelling bee, but she is still young enough to enjoy using her imagination in a make-believe battle between Queens and an evil warlord.

Genre: Humor, Friendship Fiction, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Reading level: 5th grade

Interest level: Grades 3-5

Read alikes:

Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series

Paula Danizger’s Amber Brown series
Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and the Fudge series

Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking

For a slightly older audience: Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

For a slightly younger audience: Pennypacker’s Clementine series and Park’s Junie B. Jones series

Subjects: Friendship, Rules, Family, Grandmothers, Bullies, Kittens

Series information:
#1 Moving Day
#2 The New Girl
#3 Best Friends and Drama Queens
#4 Stage Fright
#5 Glitter Girls & the Great Fake Out
#6 Blast from the Past

Characters:

Allie Finkle—the nine-year-old protagonist with a penchant for rules

Caroline—A new friends of Allie’s—the smartest girl in fourth grade

Sophie—A new friend of Allie’s—pretty and in love with “Prince Peter”

Erica—Allie’s friend and next-door neighbor—a spirited gymnast

Jay—Allie’s uncle, who is studying poetry in college

Kevin—Allie’s youngest brother, obsessed with pirates

Mark—Allie’s younger brother, obsessed with dirt bikes, bugs and sports

Mrs. Hunter—Allie’s new teacher

Rosemary—Allie’s classmate—a bully who taunts Allie and threatens to beat her up

Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Moving Day

Cabot, Meg. Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: Moving Day. Scholastic, 2008. Tr. $15.99 ISBN 978-0-545-03947-5

What’s it about?

Allie Finkle has lots of rules, and one is that you don’t let your family move into a haunted house, where there might be a disembodied zombie hand in the attic! Will Allie succeed at saving her family?

Find out more:

Allie Finkle loves math and science because they have rules—and Allie really likes rules, because that way, you know where you stand. Things like friendship are much more complicated. After getting into a fight with her weepy friend Mary Kay, she decides that she’d better get the rules of friendship in writing, and she creates “Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls,” where she records nuggets of wisdom like “you can never make a second first impression” and “don’t put your cat in a suitcase.”  Allie records lots of new rules when her parents announce they are moving to a decrepit old house that may be haunted. She is adamantly against moving, and finds ways to sabotage the move. She knows that if she behaves maturely, she will get a kitten, but her fears drive her to find ways to stop the move, even though she may have found a new group of friends that she can relate to, instead of the obnoxious and mostly fair-weather friends she has in her old neighborhood.  

Meg Cabot is a well-known author of chick-lit for teens, particularly the Princess Diaries series. The Allie Finkle series is Cabot’s first stab at writing for tweens. Allie Finkle is a memorable character, whose good intentions don’t quite match with some of her actions. In fact, she does some really bratty and potentially dangerous things, like setting up a booby trap with her rock collection to chase away potential buyers.  She redeems herself in other ways, such as confronting her classmate Brittany Hauser’s mistreatment of her beautiful Persian cat, Lady Serena Archibald. Cabot’s style is very readable and humorous, and Allie’s voice is believable.  This is a fun, entertaining read, and the portrayal of an intelligent girl’s methods of making sense of the rules of friendship and other gray areas is spot on. One criticism I have is the unconvincing portrayal of the parents. Allie’s bad behavior was essentially rewarded at the end of the book. Although she did a good thing by standing up for the cat, her other actions and sabotage of the move should have been punished, not rewarded. What sane parent gives their child a kitten after they’ve set up a dangerous trap that could have injured someone??  

Genre: Humor, Friendship Fiction, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Reading level: 5th grade

Interest level: Grades 3-5

Reviews/Awards: Starred review in Publisher’s Weekly

Read alikes:

Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series

Paula Danizger’s Amber Brown series
Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and the Fudge series

For a slightly older audience: Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

For a slightly younger audience: Pennypacker’s Clementine series and Park’s Junie B. Jones series

Subjects: Moving, Friendship, Rules, Family, Fear, Treatment of Animals

Series information:
#1 Moving Day
#2 The New Girl
#3 Best Friends and Drama Queens
#4 Stage Fright
#5 Glitter Girls & the Great Fake Out
#6 Blast from the Past

Characters:

Allie Finkle—the nine-year-old protagonist with a penchant for rules

Mary Kay—Allie’s cry baby off and on best friend at Allie’s old school

Brittany Hauser—a bratty, volatile classmate whose mistreatment of her cat boils Allie’s blood

Erica—a potential new friend at Allie’s new school

Courtney—a genuine friend of Allie at her old school

Jay—Allie’s uncle, who is studying poetry in graduate school and has a great TV, but little elkse in his apartment

Millicent Min, Girl Genius

Yee. Lisa. Millicent Min, Girl Genius. Arthur A. Levine books, 2003. ISBN 9780439425193

What’s it about?

Being a child genius is tough, Millicent Min can attest.  Millie’s life gets more complicated when her mom signs her up for volleyball and makes her tutor her nemesis Stanford Wong.

Find out more:

An eleven-year-old genius, Millicent Min is enjoying her summer, looking forward to spending time with Maddie, her eccentric grandmother, taking her first college course, and making new friends who are interested in intellectual talks . . . until her new college friend turns out to be a sham, her mother signs her up for volleyball, and she has to tutor her childhood nemesis, Stanford Wong. Millie, despite (or because of) her intellect, struggles socially and doesn’t have any friends her own age. Things begin to look up when Millie makes a friend in volleyball, a cheerful girl named Emily Ebers, who adores her. Millie hides the fact that she is a genius, however, since she thinks Emily won’t like her any longer if she knows Millie’s IQ is through the roof. Millicent goes to comic lengths to conceal her intelligence, which turns out to be a bone-headed move—Emily finds out about everything, and feels betrayed that Millicent wasn’t honest with her.

This entertaining book is one of those rare books that manages to be both funny and substantial. Millicent has a unique voice, and Yee is able to show the reader that Millie’s logic is not infallible—she jumps to hilariously mistaken conclusions. When the book begins, Millie’s intelligence defines her to herself and the world. Before the reader gets to know Millicent the person, they are bombarded with her accomplishments, which are listed in a resume, including grades skipped, recent awards, television appearances, too numerous to completely list and thus capped with a pretentious “et cetera.”  Readers will be drawn in as Millie begins to soften and show her vulnerability, particularly in her friendship with Emily and her worries about her parents.  Hand this book to bright upper elementary students and middle schoolers, particularly those that enjoy humor and realistic fiction.  

Genre label: Contemporary Realistic fiction, humor, multi-cultural

Reading level: 6^th grade

Interest level: Ages 10-13

Read-alikes:

 Harriet the Spy

Mindblind (although the protagonist of Mindblind has Asperger’s syndrome, readers interested in childhood genius will find this a compelling read)    

Subjects/themes:  Genius, friendship, honesty, family relationships

Awards: 2004 winner of the Sid Fleischman Humor Award

Series information: Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time and So Totally Emily Ebers

Character name/descriptions:

Millicent: Girl Genius, forced to join volleyball and tutor Stanford Wong, her nemesis

Stanford: Mr. Popular, potentially flunking out, Millie’s nemesis—and tutoring student

Emily: Effervescent and girly new best friend to Millicent; develops a crush on Stanford Wong


 See my book trailer here!

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