Kimchi &Calamari by Rose Kent

For most of us in school, we can look back at one particular assignment that a teacher gave and remember the stress that surrounded its completion. For Joesph Calderaro it is the 1500 word family heritage paper assigned by his social studies teacher at the end of his 8th grade year. The real issue for Joseph is that he is adopted, so he doesn't really know his heritage. While Korean on the outside, he has been raise in an Italian home. But it is this paper forces him to take closer look at what family really means. In the end, he comes to the conclusion that he is an ethnic sandwich.

What is so great about this book is that it is filled with the everyday challenges of being a middle school: wanting to ask the cool popular girl to the Final Farewell dance; trying to distance yourself from your parents; being embarrassed by your family; hanging out with your friends; trying to impress everyone that you come into contact with... yet Joseph does it in a honest and entertaining way. You can't help but, laugh and think... "Yeah, I've been there." Because even if you aren't adopted, middle school is still the time when you being to really get to know yourself, and so ultimately we all face the same challenges as Joseph just in slightly different ways.

Something else that impresses me about the book is that while Joseph is going through his own struggle of finding himself; it is parrelled by the journey is dad is taking. His dad loves books and reading, yet finds himself in a job that he has done out of duty. The side plot of his dad finally deciding that he needed a change and goes back to school is just as important as the what Joseph goes through.

Warning: you will get hungry reading this book. The author fills the book with great imagery and a lot of food figurative language.

"The world is your supersized soda waiting to be guzzled, right?" (1)
"Rain sprinkled on my face like salt on french fries." (40)
"... my backpack was soaked and my hair looked like black spaghetti." (41)
" The air felt soupy as I ran up the driveway after school." (194)

There are other fabulous English elements. Joseph as a reoccuring dream. There are quotes from literature. Tons of smilies and metaphors, and even some well placed alliteration. As a former English teacher, I love it. While I think that the cover of the book targets a female audience, I think with male narrator makes it a little more readable for a middle school guy. It would be a great book to read aloud in a class.

This is Rose Kent's first novel. Have you read it? Please let us know what you think!

Wintergirls by Laure Halse Anderson

The book begins with Lia being greeted one morning with the news that her long-time friend Cassie was found dead in a hotel. What follows is Lia's struggle with anorexia. Her ability to control her eating, or lack of eating, in a world in which she has little control is emotional. Her mother is a busy doctor; her father a professor at the local university; her stepmother terribly unaware. It is this life filled with people that seem too busy to truly know Lia that first brings her and Cassie together in their attempt to be thin. They can control their weight, and in a way, control their parents. Now that Cassie is dead, Lia is haunted by her friend as she continues to fall deeper and deeper into a world with little food. She struggles to find out about Cassie's last moments to help put her ghost to rest, but what keeps you reading is to see if she is able to heal herself; whereas her friend did not.

A very dark and haunting novel to say the least. The images of the ghost of Cassie standing over Lia's bed floated through my mind as I fell asleep after reading it one night. Definitely different than anything else I have read by this author, but as expected, the narrator is believable due to great reflective thought and realistic dialogue. I couldn't put it down because I really didn't know if Lia was strong enough to admit that she had a problem and that she NEEDED help. It is really hard to do that and Anderson does a great job of developing that conflict.

Have you read this book or any of Laurie Halse Anderson's other books? Leave a comment!

Imperfections by Lynda Durrant

In 1862 Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, a teenager names Rosemary Elizabeth is left along with her brother and baby sister at a Shaker village. “Heaven on Earth.” While Rosemary Elizabeth (who comes to be renamed by the Shakers as Sister Bess) loves the beautiful clean surroundings, the delicious abundant food, the spotless white garments and the kindly companions, she finds daily difficulties with the Shaker three Cs — confession, communality, and celibacy — as well as so many additional non-sensical rules. Rosemary struggles to be good according to the ways of the Shakers, but can't help but see the hypocrisy in their lives. Slowly, she begins to rebel in small and large ways to define her own self and comes through her Shaker experience with wonderful balance. She is grateful to all that she has learned while living with the Shakers, but she feels that once the war is over, she will leave. She worries though as to if her mother will come back to get them, and if her siblings, who seem to be acclimating to Shaker life, will want to leave.

I enjoyed the main character of this book because of her thougthfulness and intelligence. I was also amazed at how much the can be learned about the Shakers from reading this book. Clearly this is a subject of interest tot he author and much more interesting to read than a textbook.

The reading level makes is fairly easy. Late elementary and up will enough this piece of historical fiction.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

Hattie Here-and-There (real name is Hattie Brooks) has been pushed from distance relative to distance relative ever since her father and mother died when she was a child. After receiving a letter to prove up on her uncle's claim in Montana, she leaves Iowa, where she has been living as a charity case with her aunt and uncle, and heads west hoping to finally find what she has always been looking for... home.

While excited about her adventure, she soon learns that homesteading is a difficult life for everyone, but especially a 16 year old female without a family. She is befriend by the neighboring family that involves her in the politics of this small Montana town because the husband is German. Because the book is set during World War I, there are many additionally hardships that people of German descent faced. Hattie stands up for what she believes is right even if it means offending the most powerful landowners in the town.

The book is engaging and the narrative switches between her thoughts, her letters to her childhood friend/ love that is fight in Europe, and a to her uncle that is published as a column in an Iowa paper. This further makes it more interesting to read and the story moves quickly.

I will say that I thought the ending was rushed. Once everyone gets sick, what was taking her chapters to build up to all ended too fast for my taste. But perhaps if you like short books, you will be happy that she gets to the end so quickly. :) In addition to being a Newbery Honor book for 2007, this novel is also based on the author’s own family history; her great grandmother was the original Hattie who struck out on her own on the Montana prairie as a sixteen year old. I thought that was pretty cool. I love a good pioneer story. It took me back to Little House on the Prairie, but better.

Clique Series: Best Friends for Never by Lisi Harrison

The book jacket really sells this book short, although I imagine you would be looking to read this book after reading the first one in the series. This one picks up where the first one left off: Massie fighting to make sure she is the Queen-bee of OCD with her faithful followers, which Claire is still watching from the outside really wanting to be accepted.

The main conflict of this book is that Massie is told that she falling out of the limelight at OCD, and to make sure it happens, another girl in her grade is planning on throwing a co-ed Halloween party. This really frosts Massie, but she regroups to throw the co-ed Halloween party of the century organized by a high-price famous Starbucks drinking party planner. naturally at this party is the basic middle school/ high school drama: two friends like the same guy, girls have crushes on boys, friends stab each other in the back and blow each other off... yet in true Clique fashion this is all done in designer clothes! :)

Additionally, there is tension in Massie's group because of boy trouble and Olivia trouble (you'll have read to find out what that means!). Massie is also getting pressure from her mom to include Claire in all that she does, and Claire has challenges Massie to a no-shopping for a month contest. Needless to say, Massie is stressed! Add to it that the school is looking at implementing a UNIFORM policy. This is one stressed middle schooler. :)

There is a twist at the end of this book, which may lead to Claire being "in" and someone from Massie's tight group of followers being "out"! You'll have to read to find out the "who," "what," "where," "why," and "how"!

I liked the book. Quite honestly, even though this is total bullying in many cases, and I think the girls are unbelievable mean, AND ass to the fact that the money spent on clothes, food, and so on is totally unbelievable, I like just getting lost in this unrealistic world for an afternoon. It is like watch a soap opera that takes place in a middle school except there is no drinking, no drug, no sex, and no alcohol.

Have you read this book or any in the series? Let us know what you think!

Daughters of the Moon: #1 Goddess of the Night by Lynne Ewing

Vanessa really wants to be normal, but she has a secret that she can only share with her best friend Catty. The secret is she can make herself invisible. She is not really sure how or why, but at times in her life when she is under extreme emotion, she disappears. Catty has a secret, too. She can travel back in time, and while Catty experiments with her ability. Vanessa wishes it would go away, but it won't and it is becoming a big problem because every time the love of her life, Michael Saratoga, kisses her... she starts to disappear. You can see how this would be a problem.

In addition to this problem, Vanessa is getting the overwhelming feeling that she is being watched. Catty wants to travel back in time to track this mysterious person, but Vanessa is not so sure about that. It is not until Catty disappears that Vanessa knows she must act.

In enters Serena and Jimena two other girls Vanessa's age that live in the Los Angeles area, and it turns out they have powers also. Serena reads minds, and Jimena has premonitions. These two girls introduce Vanessa to Maggie (the moon goddess mentor of sorts) who begings to teach the girls about the moon goddess who has given them their powers. She also warns them of evil of the Followers and Atrox and the impending show down.

Soon the girls figure out that it is the Followers/ Atrox that have Catty, and Vanessa is willing to do whatever it takes to free her. Even if it means going against the advice of her new friends and Maggie. She just hopes that her powers are strong enough to free Catty.

The cool thing about this series is that each of the books is told from a different character's point of view, so while in this one Vanessa is the main focus, Jimena narrates the next book. The books are about 300 pages and have incredible cool covers. Definitely a fantasy story, but what makes it fantasy is the powers that each of the girls have. It is a classic battle of good vs evil, and in a weird remote way it reminded me of the tv show Charmed... but they are not witches here. Just high school girls trying to be normal. This could very easily be a tv series.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Have you read any of the others in this series? Leave a comment.

The Clique: A Novel by Lisi Harrison

I must admit that I love the covers of these books. They are all cute plaids, prints, and argyle. They also have the oh so familiar pictures of girls whispering. It is this action that pretty much sums up The Clique Series. The Clique is the first book in the series, and it firmly establishes the middle school uber-rich clique of Massie (the Queen) and her followers: Dylan, Alicia, and Kristen. To establish these four as the bossy and mean eltists girls that they appear to be, the author adds in a girl names Claire that has recently relocated to the New York area because her father is friends with Massie's dad. To make her even more undesirable, Claire and her family are living in Massie Block's guest house. Together all the girls attend Octavian Country Day School (an elite all girls school that actually mentions dressing fashionably in the handbook).

The plot of this Clique installment basically chronicles the battle between Massie and Claire. Everyone is mean at some point in the book, which is how middle school feels at some points, but what I actually liked about the book is that because the point of view changes between Claire and Massie the reader is able to see that even though the girls appear one way on the outside, they all feel scared and uncertain. Everyone is afraid of having no friends. How true is that? These girls spend the majority of the book worried that they will have no friends, lose friends, or be friends with some "loser". Claire desperately wants into Massie's clique because they are the clique of power at their school, but she really does some horrible things to hang out and be accepted by some horrible girls. This book is like the movie "Mean Girls".

While I do think that this book spends a lot of time talking about the shallowness of these girls (money, clothes, make-up, boys, etc), I still found the book enjoyable. As long as when you read it, you realize that this is not realistic and that people SHOULD NOT treat each other this way, it is an entertaining read because it is so soap opera- like.

I must also admit that I checked the next one out of the library to read.

Have you read The Clique or any of the other books in the series? What do you think?