Maya is looking forward to college as a place to dream big and follow her dreams – as in becoming a film maker. Ever since her father put a camcorder in her hands, she has been hooked. But the problem is, her parents see it as only as a hobby, not a career. With the school year winding down, and her parents clueless as to the fact that she wants to go to New York to study film, not stay in the Chicago area and be close to them, she has her work cut out for her.
To add to the complication of her life, a boy that she’s been crushing on for what seems like a long time, suddenly is paying attention to her. In fact, over their Spring Break vacation, they get super close. Or at least Maya thinks they are. But in the back of her mind, she knows he has a serious girlfriend, or at least they used to be serious. Maya isn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.
When tragedy strikes the nation, Maya and her family find themselves in the scary territory, being Muslim and Indian in a country that often blames immigrants for anything and everything that can and does go wrong. Can Maya convince her parents to overcome their fears and accept that their daughter is growing up?
Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed is a book about a girl at the crossroads of feeling and being an adult yet still finding herself making at times childish decisions. How do you stay true to yourself, but honor those who have helped foster who you have become?
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
#famous by Jilly Gagnon is great if you love stories about social media and the drama of having a crush, you have to read this book! It does have some mature content because the characters are in high school.
maybe something small. If you had a chance to redo it, would you? And just how many times would you want to redo it, if the same result kept happening? How much would you change what you did or didn’t do each time?
Maya and Nicki are named after two of their mother’s favorite poets. And their father is a community activist, always helping somewhere and someone, many of them Maya and Nicki’s friends. Maya has always loved her neighborhood, but over the last four or so years, there have been changes. Many that Nicki seems to embrace, but ones that have Maya concerned. After all, how does one feel when the white people who once fled an area, now decide it is okay to start putting up speciality shops and landlords who decide they don’t want to rent anymore, but would rather sell a home that Maya’s best friend Essence has lived in her whole life – just across the street?
living and while her grandmother isn’t exactly warm and welcoming, she does get her a job for the summer working at a local deli not far from her grandmother’s apartment in New York City. New York is a far cry from her old home in Maine. Still the busy life at the deli helps to make Mia forget, at least temporarily, about the awfulness of her life. And on her first day there, she meets Fig. Fig with the electric blue hair and the family at the deli who is big and boisterous and so full of life that it is hard for Mia to be numb around them. Fig in turn introduces her to a group of friends, one of whom is Cooper, a boy that Mia quickly becomes fascinated with.
there. And it seems she is to be made a meal of by the end of the day for a Dragon no less. However, when the Dragon does come, he isn’t quite what Alys thought he would be.
All she’s known her whole life is Hockey! And yes, it has a capital letter in Holland’s house. Because not only does she play hockey, but her two older brothers and her little brother do as well. Their dad was a big hockey player in his younger years and both he and their mom are super supportive. Especially of the fact that Holland is a girl, playing on the boys varsity team in high school. For Holland it isn’t anything new. She’s always played with the boys, from the time she was little. But while it isn’t really strange for a girl to play on the boys team, it is a little strange because there is a girls team at her high school. Still, Holland has been able to deal with the undercurrent that comes through sometimes from some of the old timers who complain she’s taking a spot away from some boy that could be playing.
He was annoyed and mad, and a bit pissed off. He had only been trying to help when he heard Shannon screaming off on the side of the school parking lot back where the bushes were. Turns out, she and a bunch of other kids had taken the principal’s car and moved it off the parking lot and onto the grass near the bushes. But they’d dropped it right down on Shannon’s foot – hence the screaming. When Elliot arrived to help lift the car off of Shannon’s foot, that is when the principal showed up too. And said that Elliot was just as responsible as Shannon and all the other kids that she wouldn’t name.
Have you ever heard of the expression, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished? Well, Justyce is thinking something along those lines while he sits on the ground in handcuffs after trying to prevent his ex- girlfriend from driving home drunk. Even when parents get involved, the police STILL don’t want to let him go. Finally, one of his friend’s mom’s who is a lawyer comes down and is able to get him out of it. All Justyce keeps thinking is what could have happened. What if the officer had gotten a little trigger happy with his gun and killed him? What then?
Ivy has felt like she’s been out of control for some time now. Ever since going into middle school, she feels like she isn’t sure what is up and what is down. All her friends want to talk about are boys, boys, and more boys. At home, her mom and her older sister and father are all consumed with the new twin boys that have arrived. Even before they arrived, it felt like her mom was gone because she was on bedrest at the end of the pregnancy.
Books in the Middle: Reading for Middle School 