But other then having an overactive worrying imagination, he’s a perfectly normal kid. He and his best friend Gigs have a made-up language and made-up games that, along with time, has cemented their friendship. He’s waiting for the switch to turn on that will make girls interesting and attractive, and that might be happening when free-spirit Sydney moves to his class and they are partnered up on a project.

No one really talks about Ma — not his siblings, not Uncle George (who is really his father with just an odd name that has stuck), but Frankie worries about her too. He worries why she doesn’t leave the house, and begins to wonder if he might end up like her. But Sydney asks a lot of questions. At first he does everything he can to avoid them, but in the end letting himself get to know her and be known by her, helps him to figure himself out a little bit more.

I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but this book feels firmly like a book for middle schoolers and above. It doesn’t have a lot of swearing or any activities that would worry the parent of a child younger than 13, but there are some mature themes mentioned. I love that there is a true coning-of-age YA book that should appeal to ages 13 and up out there that isn’t full of explicit language and sex.

It’s also one sure to appeal to adults who are fans of the coming-of-age tale (like me!). I like that it has a boy protagonist, but because the emotional quotient is very high it will also appeal to girls (and of course he has a girl best friend/perhaps more than a friend).

And if you like quirky — this one has just enough to keep you smiling, though not enough to annoy you if you don’t like quirky (although if that’s your opinion, I strongly feel you are missing out). A father called Uncle George? A cat named the Fat Controller? A made-up language? It’s all there.

AUDIOBOOK NOTES: The accented reader Stig Wemyss added to that element of place (New Zealand) that resonated loudly with this American listener.

Jennifer Donovan realized that she was addicted to audiobooks when she knew she had to replace her lost/stolen ipod within weeks — and not so she could get her groove on. She blogs about other likes at Snapshot.

I would imagine that everyone out there has heard of The Hunger Games, in some fashion. At least “I sure hear a lot about this, but I don’t know what it is.” You might know that the Hunger Games movie releases March 23. You might not know that it’s a wildly popular Young Adult series by Suzanne Collins, that has fans from tweens up through adults. You might not know that it’s dystopian literature. If you don’t know any of this, I’d suggest you brush up, because I think that this movie and these books are going to continue down their path of wild success, and you don’t want to be the last one in the know.

Keep reading my review at 5 Minutes for Mom, where you can enter to win a copy….

Marley is a sweet and likable character. Unlike her friends who are hanging out with high school kids, she’s still plotting out the ultimate water balloon attack – a tradition they’ve had for years. Her dad’s next-door neighbor is cute, but is there something romantic going on or are they just friends? She sure feels weird when she sees him – weird in a good way – but is she ready for all that stuff?

Things go awry when she launches her attack at a drama party at her friend’s house that they invite her to in spite of the fact that she hasn’t been hanging with that crowd, but it ends up being about more than high school boys and a case of bad timing. Marley finally realizes that maybe they’ve grown apart. Maybe the friendship has run it’s course.

The lesson is one that girls learn as they get ready to transition into high school. It’s painful, and it can be hard to break out of your past and forge forward with new friends but the author expresses the difficulty and the necessity of it so well. I loved our young heroine, who though her friends paint her as babyish, was really just a good kid with a good head on her shoulders.

Water Balloon by Audrey Vernick is a sweetly dramatic novel, which also had many moments where I laughed out loud. It would be a great book to share with your 11 – 14 year old daughter and use the situations as a springboard to talk about things. Or better yet – DON’T beat her over the head with conversation about “What if your friends invited you to a party where people were drinking and you felt uncomfortable,” or “Don’t you feel like you and Friend X are interested in different things now?” Save the shared experience of the book to pull out of your arsenal to talk about some difficult situations when the time comes.

This book was a Cybils nominee in the Middle Grade Fiction category, and I’m glad I had the chance to read it. It’s definitely more appropriate for the older tween segment of this category and young teens as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it to 9-year-olds as the description on amazon says.

Jennifer Donovan had fun in middle school, probably because she too had a pretty good head on her shoulders and didn’t rush to grow up too fast. She’s glad her own 8th grade daughter lives in a similar way. Jennifer blogs at Snapshot.

Keep reading at 5 Minutes for Mom to find out my thoughts on this book and the new dystopian novel Restoring Harmony in our weekly book review column. You can enter to win your own set as well by leaving a comment over there.

We are happy to a part of Scholastic’s Parent Circle. Each month, one of our reviewers will select a book from that month’s Scholastic Book Club flyers. Ilsa and I selected this Dystopian Romance pack from February’s TAB flyer.

Elizabeth read 1984 at an impressionable age which has forever tinged her view of dystopian fiction. That didn’t stop her from enjoying these two, however. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.

We’d moved from a tiny town in the Canadian prairies to a town in Northern California’s high desert, and the one good thing that place had to offer was a library that would let me take as many books as I wanted at any given time. I thought they were crazy. I would stagger out of there with 20 or 30 books. My English teacher noticed me too. She invited me to be on the yearbook and the student newspaper.

The combination of these things—loneliness, sickness, access to lots of books—made this a year that I spent a lot of time snuggled under blankets, reading, escaping into the world of my imagination. I remember that English teacher (I don’t remember her name, sadly) giving me a copy of A Wrinkle in Time and saying, “Try this. I think you’ll like it.”

I opened it and read, “It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of the bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind,” and was already hooked. I didn’t have an attic bedroom–we lived in a depressingly-average 60s-era bungalow–but I wanted one. I did have a patchwork quilt. And I love storms. By the time Mrs. Whatsit showed up and announced wild nights were her glory, I knew I had found a book to keep and treasure. (I got my own copy, don’t worry.) And so, I was along for the ride as Meg and Charles Wallace and Calvin tesseract across the universe to save Meg’s father, in an adventure that mixes theology, science fiction, pure fantasy, and the realities of everyday life on planet Earth.

I think the feeling of being alone is universal. Every child can relate to crushing embarrassment at school, to feeling misunderstood by even loving parents and siblings, to cowering in a storm and wondering if anyone else out there will ever understand you. That’s part of what makes A Wrinkle in Time such a great book. It’s instantly accessible. But then, to have Meg celebrated for her faults, to realize that what is so scary about Camazotz is that there is no originality, no true humanity, was very affirming to me as a young teen. And even though I knew that, unlike Meg, I would never do higher math, stories like this still gave me courage to keep on facing down my fears every morning on my way to that junior high.

I went on, of course, to read the companion books, then many of L’Engle’s other books. Now, as an adult, I especially love her non-fiction and poetry. All my copies are signed too, because she once visited Portland and I was able to hear her speak, and she was just as affirming and imaginative as you would expect. She was too tired to sign books afterwards, so we were encouraged to submit a list of up to 10 titles, and she sent us signed nameplates in the mail. That generosity is still stunning to me.

Once I had kids, I couldn’t wait to share my favorite books with them. They enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time too; begging me to keep going through just one more chapter to find out what happened.

It’s hard for me to believe A Wrinkle in Time was published 50 years ago–it still feels very fresh to me. This book was legendary for the number of rejections it received before someone finally had the courage to publish it, and I do feel it was ahead of its time. The legend lives on–one of last year’s most popular YA books, Matched, imagines a world very like Camazotz, and what might happen to give one of those identical children the courage to break free.

The new commemorative edition is gorgeous, with all sorts of extras—a copy of L’Engle’s acceptance speech for the Newbery Awards, a copy of a chapter from the original manuscript with her own scribbled pencil marks, an introduction by Katherine Paterson and an afterword by L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Voiklis, telling a bit of her Gran’s story and the story of the book. There are family photos, including one I love of Madeleine reading to her two granddaughters, and more. There’s also a special facebook page for the 50th Anniversary commemorative copy, where you can keep up with different events that will be happening this year to celebrate the occasion.

This post is part of a special 50 blogs in 50 days celebration, so please read some of the other thoughts, with a different theme each week.

A Wrinkle in Time is classic for all the right reasons—because it is a story that has and will endure, because it touches something timeless in all of us. If it’s been a while since you’re read it, I encourage you to share a copy with a young person in your life.

One of you (U.S. only) will win a copy of the 50th anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time. Just leave a comment, and we’ll announce the winner in our giveaway column on February 8. This giveaway is now closed.

• The winner of the Lunatics giveaway is #20 Beth C.
• The winner of Crossed is #23 Shelly Burton.
• The winner of The Flight of Gemma Hardy is #26 Tennille.
• The winner of the Shadow of Your Smile giveaway is #29 June.

Don’t miss a thing: Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed or video reviews on YouTube. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter or on Facebook.

Elizabeth is glad she never has to be 12 again, but she survived. Learn more at her blog Planet Nomad.

I enjoy fiction that causes me to think in that way, but I really wonder if kids get it. My daughter has enjoyed learning about the Civil Rights movement, and she respects Martin Luther King, but do kids like to read this sort of book? And do they understand?

Dear America: With the Might of Angels by Andrea Davis Pinkney is a perfect example of a great story — a school story — about a very strong twelve-year-old girl who wants to be a doctor. When she earns the chance to leave her run-down, second-rate school on the poor (Black) side of town to go to the richer all-White school, she and her family leap at the chance. But then the anti-segregationists step in and try to force her out. At first, her family is fighting for the rights of all the kids, even though she is the only one willing to make the valiant effort to attend, but when the local dairy provider comes out for segregation in the newspaper and the whole town decides to boycott dairy, it becomes a harder battle, and Dawnie and her family end up being resented by much of the town.

I make it sound like a dramatic heroic story, and it is, but I think that kids (girls, really) will relate to her — looking forward to her birthday, competing for an honor at school, making a new best friend, sticking up for her little brother. That’s what makes this such a nice book. The Dear America books deftly weave history and plot, and this one is no different.

AUDIO NOTES: I also listened to this on audiobook, which the library had available before my review copy came in. It was a great version. It’s hard to voice a child, but Channie Waites conveyed Dawnie’s enthusiasm and her questions perfectly.

Sylvia & Aki by Winifred Conkling takes on school integration as well.

This book is based on the true story of two girls. Sylvia Mendez and her family rent a house that is vacated when Aki Munemitsu and her family are sent to a Japanese internment camp in the World War II-induced paranoia.

When Aki must leave, she can only take a few things. Everything else must be destroyed, lest the officials find something that would mark them as anti-American. She can’t take her doll, but she can’t bear to destroy her either, so she tucks her away high in the closet.

When Sylvia moves in, she finds the beautiful traditional Japanese doll and tucks her on her bed beside her own traditional Mexican doll. The girls end up corresponding and and even becoming friends as Aki survives the uncertainty of the camp (Where is her father? Will they be reunited? When will they be able to leave?) while Sylvia battles segregation.

When her aunt tries to register Sylvia and her brother for the school that her half-white/half-Mexican children attend, she is told that her niece and nephew have to attend the Mexican school that is much further away. Sylvia’s dad fights for her to attend, all the way to court in a much lesser known — but earlier — court battle versus the Orange County school system in California.

This short book looks at two groups that experienced discrimination during this post-war time in the US. It’s a little heavier on history than plot, reading almost like that very engaging type of non-fiction that tells a story using the format of a novel, which might make it a good fit for kids who prefer non-fiction to fiction, and conversely it could introduce pure fiction lovers to the wonders of well-written non-fiction style.

*****

Though the Cybils Middle Grade fiction shortlists have already been posted, I still have some reviews to post that I read as a round I panelist. These two books were both nominated.

Jennifer Donovan enjoys historical fiction if the history and the fiction is right, but middle grade historical fiction is even better. She blogs at Snapshot.

Crossed is a little bleaker since it’s set in the Outer Provinces where Ky and Cassia have been sent. I don’t usually feel so glum when reading dystopian fiction (which features a future world gone bad, the opposite of a perfect utopian world), but for some reason this one gave me a bit of a hopeless feeling, at least in the first half when Cassia and Ky are wandering in the wilderness. I think that it was because it was heavier on the political plot — that’s why they were wandering after all — and in my heart, I’m a conformist who likes to believe that authority is good.

I was completely pulled in to the narrative and kept reading to find out what would happen next. One factor contributing to the fast pace is the way the narration alternated chapters from each of their POV.

This is Amanda’s “Kid’s Pick” for her month of reading, and as I quoted her saying in that post, this book does have more romance. It’s still nothing beyond some kissing, but it has that YA/soulmate feel to it (that some of us who are no longer teenagers might find a little annoying– ahem). The love triangle intensifies and leaves readers wondering whether Ky or Xander would be the best match for her (Do you have an opinion? Are you Team Ky or Team Xander?).

That said, this is a great YA title. Even not being a young adult, I enjoy Condie’s writing and expression and the world she has created. I look forward to wrapping up the series when the 3rd and final title comes out next year. I wouldn’t say that Crossed stands alone exactly. I didn’t re-read Matched after reading it about a year ago, and I was able to pick it up, though some of the details were hazy, and I had to consult with my daughter, who did re-read it. The story in this 2nd installment does have a complete story arc, which I always appreciate, though like most endings in book two of a trilogy, there is somewhat of a cliffhanger ending.

You can win Crossed (U.S. shipping addresses only please)! Just leave a comment if you’d like to win your own copy of this very popular series. We’ll announce the winner in our book giveaway column on January 25.The giveaway is closed.

Don’t miss a thing: Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed or video reviews on YouTube. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter or on Facebook.

We are happy to a part of Scholastic’s Parent Circle. Each month, one of our reviewers will select a book from that month’s Scholastic Book Club flyers. This book came out in January’s TAB flyer.

Jennifer enjoys reading YA fiction, both with and without her 13-year-old daughter whose tastes sometimes differ from her own. She blogs more about life with her family in Houston at Snapshot.

Unfortunately, the oldest boy of the current Goddess-incarnation, Ariadne’s brother, is disfigured, misformed, gigantic, mentally-simple, and as a result is viewed as a monster. Kept in rooms beneath the palace because he is a menace to others, his attempts at playing with other children have resulted in their deaths. From this has sprung the legend of the Minotaur. “It isn’t true what they say about my brother—that he ate those children,” begins the prologue. “He never did; he didn’t mean to even hurt them. He wept…”

Meanwhile, we turn to Theseus’ point of view. He’s grown up different from the other boys in his home town, and his mother claims he was sired by a god. One day he finds things left to him by his father—an old sword, a pair of sandals—and sets out to find the truth. When he discovers he is the son of the king of Athens, a man who looks bored and a new queen who looks murderous, he embellishes his adventures along the way. They in turn send him off to Krete, where he plots to overthrow the government, only to find out it’s not what he thought it was. It’s all too easy to see how fact can turn into myth.

Tracy Barrett’s retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is inspired. She looks dispassionately at where the myth could have sprung form, and comes up with a plausible origin. She even comes up with a new twist on the story of Medueus, who famously killed her own children. Along the way, she includes plenty of historic settings and glimpses into ancient religions. I found Dark of the Moon really well-done. It has wide appeal—anyone who enjoys a well-told tale, not only those interested in myths and legends or history, will like it. I highly recommend it.

“It was a good book—nicely told and very interesting,” says Ilsa, 14. “I liked how creative it was, and I liked seeing things from a different point of view. I liked the character of Ariadne, and how she dealt with conflicts in her life.”

Tracy Barrett is also the author of King of Ithaka, an imaginative retelling of the Odyssey from the point of view of Odysseus’ son Telemachos. I hope she continues to bring her outlook and fresh perspective to bear on other myths and legends; I look forward to reading more from her.

Elizabeth loves books that offer a fresh look at old tales. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.