Books For Middle School And Junior High School

By Author: Kathleen
Total Articles: 56
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Any discussion of books in this area must begin, for me, with James Howe's The Misfits (Atheneum, 2001). Already taught in many schools, the book follows four outcast students who have been friends for years and have endured name-calling from others. Now that they're in seventh grade, they decide to take a stand: they run for student council as the "No Name Party." The book deals with Tag Heuer Replica bullying, and more broadly friendship, in a humorous and upbeat fashion. Howe also wrote a follow-up, Totally Joe (Ginee Seo, 2005), written as an alpha biography assignment (depicting the school year, one letter at a time) from Joe, one of the friends from The Misfits.

Kathe Koja's Buddha Boy (Far-rar, 2003) explores the social cliques that dominate high school through the eyes of Justin, an "average" student who is trying to fly beneath the radar of the school's elite and powerful. Justin, however, is intrigued by the new kid at school, Michael Martin (better known as Jinsen), who looks like a Buddhist monk and stirs the vicious nature of ...
... the school's bullies. Short and fast-paced, this book will make readers consider when to do the right thing and just how hard it can be to do that.

An interesting alliance emerges in Caroline Pignat's Egghead (Red Deer, 2007): the victim, Will; his friend, Kate; and Devan, who is beginning to remove himself from the school bully's entourage. These three characters take turns narrating the book, detailing a sensitive depiction of how bullying, peer pressure, and the quest for one's identity are woven throughout their ninth-grade experience.

Alternating narrators are also used to great effect in Alex Flinn's Fade to Black (Harper, 2005). Alejandro Crusan, a high school junior who is HIV-positive, is attacked in his car one night by a stranger with a baseball bat. Clinton Cole, a classmate who has tormented Alejandro on previous occasions, proclaims his innocence, but there was a witness that night: Daria, who has Down syndrome, knows what she saw but is not always able to articulate her thoughts clearly to others. By shifting between Alejandro's and Daria's perspectives, Flinn encourages readers to discern the reality from rumors surrounding the events, and to think more carefully about prejudice and fear.
A stellar book that illustrates the ways in which peer pressures

can easily lead to harassment and other actions is Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl (Knopf, 2000). Stargirl is the new girl at Mica High, a girl so unique and eccentric that she initially fascinates and puzzles, and later angers Tag Heuer Carrera Replica Watches other students, who can't find a label to pin on her. But for Leo, the narrator, Stargirl is a first love, and he must choose whose attention and affection is more important to him: Stargirl's or that of his peers. Spinelli has crafted a wonderfully memorable character who can show readers that it is all right to be different from the others. Readers will also want to revisit Stargirl and Leo's relationship, one year later, in Love, Stargirl (Knopf, 2007).