Airhead by Meg Cabot

Publisher: Scholastic, Point ISBN (library bind): 9780545040525

Price: $16.99 #pages: 337 Call number: Fic Cab

Em Watts is an average, somewhat frumpy, high school junior with a love for gaming and very little else. Her little sister, Frida, is a typical high school freshman who dreams of popularity and researches in CosmoGirl for the latest trends in order to become that way. Everything changes for Em when she is forced to accompany Frida to watch the latest music sensation perform at the opening of a Stark Megastore. Somehow, she ends up in the body of a super-model. Meg Cabot has begun a new series, which, reminiscent of the Princess Diaries series, takes an average character and launches her into a New York upper class lifestyle. Em must learn to let go of her old life and accept that she is now a 17 year old supermodel. Cabot has created an engaging and interesting character and plotline that will keep readers intrigued for many books to come.

Recommended grade levels: 8-11

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

Neeka and our narrator have been best friends since birth. A new girl shows up on their block calling herself “D” and blends into their friendship seamlessly. The girls call themselves “Three the Hard Way” and build a tight bond over a two year time frame. It’s 1994, the year Tupac Shakur is enduring legal issues and multiple physical attacks. D, and the rest of the neighborhood, relate wholeheartedly to Tupac’s music and their quotations frame their emotions throughout the story.
When D’s real mom shows up, D must leave the tight knit community that has taken her in hope of starting a positive new life with her mom. Her departure parallels Tupac’s final attack and eventual death.
Woodson weaves a beautifully simple story about friendship, family, community and how the power of can music can tie us all together.

Recommended grade levels: 6-12

42 Miles by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

At first, her parent's divorce wasn't too bad since they only lived four blocks apart in Cincinnati, Ohio. But when her father moved into Grandpa's farm after Grandpa died, it was a whole 42 miles away!
JoEllen became two persons: a city girl named Ellen enjoying fashion, baseball, and old movies with her mother during the week and then a country girl named Jo going to the country fair and visiting the bookmobile with her father on the weekends.
Finally, she decides she has had enough and merges the two lives together by introducing her city friends to her country cousin, creating new organic dishes, changing her clothes and hair and spending time enjoying the things she likes most.
The whole coming of age experience is written in simple free verse poems that describes the two lifestyles magically ("Farm Nights & "Cincinnati Nights").

Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
ISBN (library bind): 13-978-1-4169-1171-5
Price: $16.99 #pages: 346
Call number: FIC Had

Annotation:
Against the backdrop of the Triangle Waist Company Fire, one of the worst workplace disasters in history before 9/11, the threads of the lives of three young women are woven together telling a story of the struggle for women's suffrage, the plight of immigrants in America, and the fight for fair labor practices and decent working conditions. Bella is a new immigrant from Italy who has come to America for work to try to save the lives of her starving family back home. She must rely on others to help her with everything and she is cheated and victimized by most of them. Yetta, a Russian Jew, lives with her sister and is consumed with the new union movement. Jane, a bored socialite, begins to educate herself and is exposed to the young, immigrant working girls during their strike. Her encounter with Yetta during picketing eventually leads Jane to meet Bella and to translate a sad, devastating letter from Italy for her. Jane’s compassion for Bella’s situation stirs her to bring the young woman to her home to comfort and nurse her in her grief. When Jane eventually breaks from her father, she runs to the Triangle factory and her friends who shelter her. Finding a job as governess to the daughters of one of the Triangle owners, Jane learns first hand about the life of a working girl on the lower East Side. In the harrowing final pages, all three young women find themselves at the Triangle factory on the day of the fire. Sadly, many lives are lost. Margaret Haddix has always been able to write a good page-turner and this is no exception. Uprising reaches another level, however, because of her emotional involvement with the characters. As in her earlier book,Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, this one will haunt you long after the final chapter.
Recommended grade levels: 7 and up

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall

The four Penderwick sisters are back at home in this endearing sequel. This time , though, the adventure is getting serious. woderful aunt Claire comes for a visit but offers the dreadful thought that it's time for the girl's widowed father to start dating! YIKES! One bad date and the horrible stoies of awful literary steip-mothers haunt the sisters until they decide this datin stuff must stop. An emergency MOPS (Meeting of the Penderwick Sisters) meeting must be held. The "Save-Daddy" plan is hatched and goes into action in true Penderwick fashion. That's to say elaborate plans are made but only partially fulfilled and it sort of end in a fun but silly mess.

The Daring Book for Girls by Miriam Peskowitz

There is so much information contained in these 279 pages. Everyone has some gaps in their learning and this is the book to fill those gaps. The book contains some information for a variety of ages: slumber pary games, famous women, how to change a tire, and Latin root words. There is something for every elementary and middle school girl.

Originally posted on the Best Books Blog by CWasserman at 1:15 PM on Jan 2, 2008

A Companion title to the The Dangerous Book for Boys