Calli feels as though she’s the only one in her family who is not a super achiever. Her brother excels at basketball, her sister skates and her parents are busy getting them to practices and games and cheering them on. As the youngest, Calli often feels she gets no attention because she’s average and happy to be that way. But when her fifth grade class is paired with a group of second graders as part of a Peer Helper Program, she may just find something she is happy to excel at.

Calli Be Gold by Michele Weber Hurwitz is sure to strike a chord with both moms and daughters. Calli’s mom never has a spare moment, rushing from one event to another with post-it notes stuck to her steering wheel to help her remember where she’s going. Her dad pushes all the kids to be super achievers, and he asks them each to report on their accomplishments every night at dinner. The portrait is of a family so busy doing, they don’t have time to relax. That lifestyle is bound to be familiar to many readers.

Calli has to figure out how to let her family know that she doesn’t want to jump onto the merry-go-round of activities. The family dynamic is complicated by the fact that both of her parents didn’t get to achieve things they wanted when they were children, so they are determined that their own kids won’t have similar regrets.

Calli’s relationship with Noah, the second-grader she works with for the Peer Helper Program, helps her see what’s really important and find a way to let everyone else know how she feels. Noah faces challenges of his own, and as she gets to know him better, she realizes what her own strengths are.

Mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 13 will have a lot to talk about after reading Calli Be Gold. They can talk about the things they like to do and what motivates them to do those things. They can talk about the difficulties and challenges family members sometimes face when communicating with each other. Also, there are issues with Calli and her friends at school, as well as with Noah, that should provide for interesting discussion. I highly recommend it.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

I loved being able to recommend good books for middle-grade readers, which is roughly defined as readers aged 9 to 12, The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook is one of those, so read on for the review, and check back tomorrow for an essay from author Joanne Rocklin about the power of telling stories (check back tomorrow for the essay).

Ever since Oona found Zook, short for zucchini, in the alley by their apartment, the kitty has been a big part of her family’s life. He helped comfort Oona’s dad when he was dying of cancer, and he’s a constant companion to Oona and her little brother, Fred. But when Zook gets sick and has to stay at the vet’s office, Oona and Fred both worry that he won’t make it.

To distract Fred, and to buoy up her own spirits, Oona tells him that cats have nine lives, and Zook is on his fifth. She creates imaginative stories about all the adventures their kitty has had in his other lives, and while she talks she also helps Fred learn how to spell by drawing rebuses, which are puzzles that combine pictures and letters to suggest a word.

In between telling stories of Zook, Oona worries because her mom is hanging out more and more with a man who lives around the corner. Plus, Oona is keeping a big secret about the day she found Zook. She’s not sure how she’s ever going to tell the truth, but she knows the day is coming when she’ll have to.

The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook is a sweet book about a thoughtful 10-year-old girl who is still grieving for her father and is determined to do what she can for her beloved cat. You’ll fall in love with Oona, who knows that important words are spelled in all caps and has what she calls the “Rainbow Whopper Theory” about lying—blue whoppers save “your scaredy skin,” black whoppers are told to hurt someone, yellow whoppers leave important information out…and so on.

Oona loves her little brother, and she wants to protect him as well as help teach him. She’s a big help to her mother, but she also resents that her mother seems to be moving on with her life after her dad’s death. She’s determined to think bad things about the man her mother is spending time with.

Oona is quick to judge, but she’s also quick to revise her opinion. Deep down she knows what is right, but she struggles to always do the right thing. By the time you turn the last page of The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook, Oona will have worked her way into your heart and will stay there for a while. I highly recommend the book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 8 and up.

Check the author’s website for a sample chapter, an activity kit that you can use during a meeting, and a link to the book trailer.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Mavis Elizabeth Betterly, or May B., has been hired to help at a neighbor’s farm. On the Kansas prairie that means the neighbor is 15 miles away and May will be there from August until Christmas. She doesn’t want to go, she’d rather stay in school, but her family needs the money her work will bring.

When the neighbor’s new bride decides she can’t handle life on the prairie any more, she leaves, and he goes after her. Neither returns. Left alone, May must fend for herself for months without any expectation that someone will come for her. As the days and weeks pass, she searches inside herself to discover who she is and what she will be when she rejoins her family.

May B. by Caroline Starr rose is a story about pioneer life and one girls determination to make more of herself than people expect. May struggles with dyslexia, and she can’t understand why words don’t always make sense to her. She knows she’s smart, and she wants to continue her education to be a teacher one day.

Through her reflections the reader finds that May had the advantage of an early teacher who encouraged her and helped her with her reading. But the teacher who replaces her isn’t so kind. She looks for ways to humiliate May and make her feel that she is stupid.

Spending months alone, feeling that her family doesn’t believe she can achieve any more in school, May struggles with the question. Is she smart, or is there something wrong with her? Can she go on to achieve what she wishes for, or should she just give up trying to overcome the hardships all around her?

Told in verse, May B. will steal your heart and have you leave you happy you didn’t live in a sod house on the Kansas Prairie. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 8 to 12.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Donna Gephart, who previously penned the funny and thoughtful books as if being 12-3/4 isn’t bad enough my mother is running for president! and How to Survive Middle School, has another great book for middle-grade readers aged 9 to 12 coming out next week. It’s called Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen, and here’s my review.

Ever since she can remember, Olivia Bean has loved to watch Jeopardy! It used the be the thing she did with her dad, before he left the family in Philadelphia and went to California with Olivia’s best friend’s mom. Now she watches the game show every night on her own, and sometimes she knows the answers when the adult players don’t.

So when Olivia finds out that testing for Kids Week is coming up, she knows she has to try out. Not only that, she’s got to win a spot on the show. That way she’ll get to visit the studio where Jeopardy! is filmed, which is near where her dad lives. With only 15 kids from around the country chosen to compete, Olivia will have to be extra sharp to earn a spot of her own.

If you like trivia, you’ll love Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen by Donna Gephart, but even you if you don’t there’s a lot to fall for in this story of a 12-year-old who misses her dad, is worried about her mom, and is making other adjustments in her life too.

For one thing, there’s the boy next door, Tucker, who used to be her friend but now he seems mean. For another, she hasn’t really made any other close girl friends since Nikki left for California. Olivia’s dad, who is a gambler, seems more interested in his new life than in the family he left behind, and her mom has been laid off from her journalism job. Olivia’s younger brother likes spouting gross trivia, and she resents her mom’s boyfriend. It’s a lot for a pre-teen to deal with.

But Olivia is strong, and you’ll cheer her on as she tackles life’s triumphs and disappointments while learning a lot about herself and the people who love her. I highly recommend Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 13. For a study guide, visit Gephart’s website and click on the “For Educators and Librarians” tab.

Also, if your book club reads Olivia Bean, you can email the author and ask for the Free 9-page activity/reading guide created by a school media specialist. Just visit: http://www.donnagephart.com/free-readingactivity-guide.html and request it.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book for review
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Claudette has heard the legend of how the baby-toe-eating giant was banished to the far-away mountain by the marquis of her town so he could never terrorize them again. Longing for adventure, she believes the giant should have been killed, and she thinks she’s the one to do it. Together with her brother, an aspiring chef and swordmaker, and princess-in-the-making Marie, she sets off to slay the giant and make her village secure.

Giants Beware, a new graphic novel written by Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre, melds the dynamics of a medieval village with the sensibilities of people today to create a new kind of fairy tale that’s funny, irreverent and wholly enjoyable. As the children go about their adventure they have to face challenges from human-eating trees, a hag who wants to cook children so she can break the spell that’s been put on her to ruin her looks, and a river king made of water who’s searching for a princess to marry his fishy son. Each of them finds strengths they didn’t know they had to come to the aid of their friends.

When they reach their destination these pint-sized heroes find something surprising that will change their view of their perceived enemy. Adults as well as children aged 8 and up will have fun reading Giants Beware. The story is cleverly told and the illustrations, particularly the facial expressions of each character, are fun to look at.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Sarah Kay has been a performing poet since she was 14-years-old. At 22, she is now a slam poet who wrote a powerful note of love for an unborn daughter.

First performed at TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), “B” opens with the lines, “If I should have a daughter, instead of mom, she’s going to call me Point B. Because that way she knows that no matter what happens at least she can always find her way to me.”

In her poem, Kay tells her daughter she will always be there to help with the heartache that is sure to come from life. She also wants her daughter to know that she should never stop believing, never stop hoping, and never stop loving. It has been called a “thank you note, love letter, wish, promise, confession, and a secret.” All this from one small poem that can be read or listened to in minutes.

I encourage you to watch Kay’s performance (http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html), which is compelling, but you can also get a copy of the book, which will let you keep it always and read aloud to your own daughter. The slim volume includes beautiful, yet simple black-and-white illustrations by Sophia Janowitz,

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Here’s a guest book review from author Christina Hamlett. Visit her website for more information about her work, www.authorhamlett.com.

Title: Mistress Masham’s Repose
Author: T.H. White
Publisher: New York Review Children’s Collection (2004)
Reviewer: Christina Hamlett

What a wonderful trek down memory lane! I owned a copy of this book when I was 10 and remember being so riveted by it that when it was time to go to bed I took the book under the covers with me and finished reading it by the light of my Girl Scout flashlight. (Which no doubt accounts for why I have such bad eyesight as an adult!) Since my own copy had been long gone, I was delighted to discover I could buy a replacement on Amazon. Instead of preceding this one with a cup of hot chocolate and finishing the last chapters by flashlight, however, I had a martini and happily stayed up until midnight. Time has not diminished in any way the satisfaction of a tale well told.

The story speaks to timeless themes about the powerlessness of children in the dreary world of rules imposed by adults. Is it any wonder, then, that the spunky heroine, Maria, delights in the colony of Lilliputians she discovers on the grounds of Malplaquet and sees a ready kinship with their dreams, fears and sense of righteous rebellion. Although she is not a perfect child, Maria is possessed of a kind heart that infuses her with bold – and sometimes comedic – determination to save her diminutive friends from harm. T.H. White seamlessly intercuts between the two worlds that Maria inhabits. It wasn’t until many years after I first read this book that I recognized striking parallels to the novel for which White is most famous – The Once and Future King. Maria shares much in common with the bewildered young King Arthur, including the “Merlin” mentorship of a bookish professor and a quest to keep an enchanted and special version of backyard Camelot from being absorbed by external vice and unabashed greed.

Although the book is targeted to lower grades, one would never know it from White’s style and engaging use of language. He would be the type, I think, who could hold lengthy discourses about the state of the world with a rapt gaggle of 10 year olds and they would never once think that he was talking down to them nor trying to impress them with philosophies beyond their vocabularies or frame of reference. Whether you’re discovering this literary treasure for the very first time or revisiting it after a long absence, it doesn’t fail to entertain or inspire.

Thirteen-year-old Zardi is the daughter of the Sultan’s closest adviser. She lives with her family and Rhidan, a ward of the state since he was found on their shores as a babe years ago. Rhidan doesn’t look like anyone else in their country, and he knows nothing about where he is from.

When the cruel Sultan imprisons Zardi’s sister and father she is desperate to find a way to free them and end the Sultan’s iron-fisted rule over her country. If she and Rhidan can find a sailor named Sinbad, who seems to know something about Rhidan’s origin and tells tales of fighting magical creatures, they just may be able to solve Rhidan’s mystery and get rid of the Sultan once and for all.

The Book of Wonders is the first in a new trilogy for young readers by Jasmine Richards. Drawing on Arabian legends of djinnis, Sinbad, Sheherazade, a Cyclops and other magical creatures, Richards weaves a tale of adventure that doesn’t stop from beginning to end.

Zardi is a strong character who refuses to accept the way things are and the strictures for how girls are supposed to act in her time. Together, she and Rhidan encounter one adventure after another as they race to save her family and find out where he comes from. Along the way they have to ponder big issues about deciding who to trust, making amends for wrongdoing, and finding out what it means to be a friend.

While the ending sets up the next adventure the two will tackle, it also is a satisfying conclusion to this story. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 8 to 12.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

In the early 1900s a girl named Beryl Clutterbuck was growing up on a ranch in what was then British East Africa. With a mother who had returned to England when she was a baby and a father who had little time to spend on raising her, Beryl grew up wild and as resistant to taming as the land around her. Her best friend was a native boy, Kibii, and she wanted to train to be a Nandi warrior.

Beryl’s fierce sense of daring and adventure never left her, and she later went on to be Beryl Markham, the first pilot to fly solo from England to North America. Promise the Night is a new work of historical fiction by Michaela MacColl that weaves real life incidents from Beryl’s pre-teen years with rich details of African life. The result is a fascinating portrait of a girl who is courageous, independent, unconventional, and not always likeable.

Promise the Night also paints a vivid picture of Africa during those times. White settlers came for the vast tracts of land they could buy for farming, ranching and other pursuits. Inevitably, there were conflicts with black natives who were looked down on for what were considered primitive ways.

Tales of lion hunts, leopard attacks, encounters with baboons and horse races are thrilling to read about, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself alternately cheering for Beryl and appalled by her sometimes bristly nature. Promise the Night brings a part of her childhood to life while also interspersing notes from her solo trip across the Atlantic.

I first learned about Beryl Markham when I read her memoir, West With the Night. While I really like that book a lot, it’s not accessible for younger readers. Promise the Night fills in that gap and introduces younger readers to this remarkable woman. I highly recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 13. I also believe boys will like this book equally as well as girls.

P.S. You may also want to check out the discussion guide for this book at MacColl’s website. AYou may also want to read the first chapter of Promise the Night.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

In The Darlings Are Forever, Jane, Victoria and Natalya, who have been friends for years, were separated  for the first time in years when they left the school they attended until 8th grade and each went to different high schools.

The Darlings in Love by Melissa Kantor continues the saga of their freshman year, this time looking at how each girl approaches being in a relationship with a boy. Jane is headstrong and confident, and she pursues Simon even though he gives off mixed signals about what he really wants. Natalya is a bit more reserved, and she’s a little unsure of how to approach the wealthy people she’s surrounded by since she got her scholarship to a prestigious private school. Colin is one of those. While they seem so at ease when they are with each other, she’s not sure she can ever fit into his upscale lifestyle. Victoria is not afraid to let Jack know she loves him, but she wonders if they really have enough in common to hold them together.

Together the girls help each other navigate the often-confusing waters of first-time love. How do you interpret the signals you’re getting from a guy about your relationship? Do you give up after the first sign of trouble, or do you try to fix the problem? What happens is a guy tells you he likes you, but he’s dating someone else? What if you find out he likes someone else more than you?

These and other issues are sure to be on the minds of girls who read The Darlings in Love, and Kantor keeps each personality true to itself as she helps her characters figure out the answers to their own questions. Through it all, Jane, Natalya and Victoria have each other to lean on during the rough times and to celebrate with during the good times. I recommend The Darlings in Love for girls aged 11 and up.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.