The Naked Mole-Rat Letters by Mary Amato

THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE OF THIS YEAR'S REBECCA CAUDILL LIST.

I really enjoyed this story from beginning to end. I love the real life events that happen to the main character who is a middle school girl with two younger brothers. Their mother passed away, thus the narrator feels the extra pressure of helping with the children and the house. Prior to the time of the story, "Frankie", the main character and narrator, is a straight A student who is well trusted and respected at school. Through the course of this story, she ditches school, shreds a library book, lies repeatedly, cheats on a test, badgers her brothers, loses her youngest brother, hacks into her father's email, starts the kitchen on fire, and runs-off her father's girlfriend. Frankie makes friends with a boy (Johnny) that is not accepted at school by her other friends. She struggles to decide whether or not to chance being friends with him at the risk of losing her other friends. As a reader, we also see the change of relationship and behavior between Frankie, her father, and her father's secret girlfriend.

My biggest complaint about this story is that I wanted more at the end. I want to see the outcome of the relationship between Johnny and Frankie, and the relationship between Frankie's dad and Ayanna ( his secret girlfriend that takes care of naked mole-rats at the zoo.)

The story is a very easy read, written in a combination of e-mail and diary entries.

You might want to have tissue available for the last 25 pages!! Hope you like this one. I did.

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis

I LOVED THIS ONE. This is an easy book to read and goes very quickly. I started it and found myself trying to find reasons to quit doing my hoursework etc. so I could finish it. It addresses many true issues that effect the middle school students. The characters many times will remind the readers of students in their class,

Emma- Jean is a twelve year old gifted girl who uses logic and critical thinking to evaluate every aspect of her life, friends or teachers included. Emma's father, Eugene, has passed, but not before teaching and convincing Emma that all problems, no matter how complicate, can be solved with critical thinking. Thus, when Emma-Jean for some unknown reason decides to taken upon herself nto help a fellow classmate solve a "social problem", she finds that sometimes even the best layed plans backfire.

This is a good story about being different and being okay with who you are even though it might not be what everyone else can handle you as. It very graciously deals with grievance of loved ones as well as dealing with bullies, and accepting change.

Couldn't make myself put this one down. I LOVED IT!!

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'roark Dowell

The narrator of this story is the daughter of a colonel in the Army. She and her brother have been raised as army children and are very intrigued by the aspect of war. They spend much of their childhood roleplaying the war and when her brother signs up for service, the author is extremely confused when her father and mother are not overly thrilled. She can not wait to live the life of the war through her brother and his letters.

Although her brother does not convey the war life through letters, she gets more than enough information through pictures that her brother sends for her to develop. Suddenly, the reality of the war is not as wonderful and exciting as she had expected it to be as not even her powerful father the Colonel can guarantee her brother's safety.

Good story. Rather slow moving but definitley can start the "Gagnor Waterfalls" toward the end of the story.