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.

Regardless, we want to hear how it’s going! Each month on the 4th Tuesday we give you the opportunity to reflect on what you’ve read and/or tell us what you want to read.

If you wrote up a post on your blog, just link directly to the post in the box below. It’s so exciting to have new people joining in each month. If this is your first time, please put that next to your name in the linky, so that we can give you an extra-warm welcome!

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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.

I love sharing what they are reading in my Kids’ Picks posts over at my personal blog Snapshot, and I’ll hope that you’ll join us in 2012 as well. On the second Tuesday of each month, we share what our kids are enjoying. These are books that they’d recommend. Books they couldn’t put down. It’s not necessary something on your homeschool curriculum or something that they had to read in school (although it’s very cool when then “have to” books intersect with the “want to” books).

By the way, that’s sort of what the Cybils go for — literary merit and kid appeal — so if you haven’t checked out the finalists, it’s a good place to start if you are looking for recommendations for your kids.

Please link directly to your blog post, and include your children’s ages for ease in visiting.

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The Cybils finalist lists are out! Check out the site for the top picks in categories from young adult, to picture books, to poetry and more.

Dawn and I were thrilled to be invited back to serve as Cybils round I judges this year, her in fiction picture books and me in middle grade fiction.

For me (Jennifer), both this year and last year, I realized that there were going to be some very fine books that wouldn’t see the shortlist. Take seven panelists, 142 middle grade fiction nominees, a shortlist limited to 5 to 7 books that should hit the target of being both well-written and oozing with kid-appeal, and there will likely be some books that just don’t make the cut.

As a panelist, I was happy to discover several new books/authors that didn’t make the cut. Buried in that list of 142 nominees, they might get forgotten, so I’m going to pull them to the forefront.

Please note that this isn’t “sour grapes.” Our middle grade finalist list is fantastic. The list of finalists is varied featuring books that are humorous or serious featuring kids who will look just like those reading it, or possibly will open their eyes to a whole new culture. I’m proud of each and every book on the list and happy that they will be getting some more attention.

That said, here are some others that really stood out to me (all linked to my reviews):

• I liked Calli B. Gold so much it surprised me. I don’t know why. I elaborated more in the review.
• Saving Zasha — A beautiful dog, a war-time setting in a foreign country, and adolescent boys standing up for their family all make this book one that I hope reaches a lot of kids.
• Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading — We know exactly what we think this book is about: Reading is dumb, people who like to read are geeks; OR Kid thinks he hates reading, but picks up a book and loves it. Wrong all around. Charlie Joe charmed me.
• Wolf Storm– Truth be told, I liked Dee Garretson’s first book Wildfire Run more, but her newest one featured a really cool setting — actor kids on set in a snowy wonderland, and just the right suspension of disbelief about what they could do in a crisis.

Now, when you talk picture books, I (Dawn) could talk your ear off. As a mom to two kids still in the age range for picture books, and as a preschool teacher, I live and breathe this genre, and I love every minute of it. The finalists in the Fiction Picture Book category are really some of the best books published in the eligibility period, in my opinion, though there are ones I love more than others on that list. There is one book, though, that I just couldn’t convince the other round one judges to include, and I’m happy to put it in the spotlight here.

Stars by Mary Lyn Ray, and beautifully illustrated by Marla Frazee, impressed me from the moment I picked it up. I looked at it in a bookstore, since it was still too new to be in my public library, and I immediately knew I would be purchasing it that very day, which is not something that I do on a whim. Magic oozes from this book, inviting children to use the imaginative power that comes naturally to them when thinking about all the ways stars can play a part in their lives. And just as in another of my favorite books illustrated by Frazee, All the World, the art perfectly complements the text and the illustrations of children are naturally diverse and alive with emotion. (Incidentally, these illustrations definitely helped All the World win the 2009 Cybils Award, and the 2010 Caldecott!) Though this is definitely a quiet read, I can personally attest to its kid appeal from my experiences reading it to the rapt audiences of my own children and my class of three and four year olds, who all sat big-eyed with wonder. I’ll be giving Stars as a children’s gift for years to come.

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Jennifer feels the same way about being a Round I panelist as one feels after having a baby. She might like to do it again, but doesn’t want to talk about it right now. Let’s just appreciate this baby! She blogs at Snapshot.

Dawn juggles teaching, parenting, and reading on a daily basis, sometimes hopping back over to give her blog, my thoughts exactly, a bit of attention, too.

I’ve also joined in the S. Krishna’s South Asian Authors challenge (two years in a row and planning on a third), because I like to read South Asian literature, and I like connecting with others who feel the same way, and it can easily dovetail with my review reading, since I’m drawn to those titles anyway.

But this year, I’m challenging myself in my own way. I’m going to read at least 12 books this year that are absolutely only solely just for me. No review copies, no deadlines, no reports. Twelve doesn’t sound like all that much considering I read over 150 books this year (including those audiobooks and lots of kids’ fiction). But I want to show myself that I can do it. It’s a goal that I put on my What’s on Your Nightstand posts throughout the year as well as those Fall and Spring challenges, but then I fall short.

Why? Why don’t I just read what I want to read?

There are good reasons for this, the top one being that I’m a book reviewer. I like being a book reviewer. I love the books that come across my desk via my inbox or unsolicited deliveries. Once I accept them, I have an obligation to follow-through in a timely fashion, so other books get pushed aside. But I can take time with twelve books over the course of 2012, and perhaps like that first Fall into Reading Challenge 5 years ago, this goal will just be the tip of the iceberg.

I’d also like to challenge myself to accurately track the number of books I read. I loved jotting thoughts, pages read, and when I started and finished my books in my Reader’s Notebook the last couple of years, but I was never 100% accurate about tracking it, and never had a good collection of my reviews either. Though I was planning to just use a page on my personal blog, after reading that post, and the post about buying my second reader’s notebook, I think I might keep it in paper once again, with just a list of links online (and duh–I guess I could use goodreads for that, right??).

To recap — in 2012 I’m challenging myself to read at least 12 books just for me, and I’m also challenging myself to keep an accurate record of what I’ve read.

What about you? Link to your reading goals for 2012 below, including any challenges that you are joining in.

Jennifer Donovan is grateful that she has the time to read and that she is surrounded by so many wonderful options. She’s shared some of her other personal goals for 2012 at her blog Snapshot.