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Books for Tweens - Middle School
Baby
$5.99
A heartwarming story about loss, connection, and the healing powers of language. Larkin and her friend Lalo find a baby in a basket with this note: "This is Sophie. She is good.... I love her. I will come back for her one day." Larkin's family welcomes Sophie but her arrival forces them to come to terms with a secret loss. Some are afraid to love Sophie, always wondering if her mother will return for her. In time, though, Larkin learns to make peace with love and loss. This story of a family's responses to an abandoned baby is told with a child's voice and focuses on the child's role.
Pact says: Holding the reader captive from start to finish, BABY is sure to inspire discussion about family building through adoption and foster families. Highly recommended.
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Cool Salsa
$16.95
Bilingual poems on growing up Latino in the United States. Growing up Latino in the United States sometimes means speaking two languages and learning the rules of two cultures. These poems celebrate the trials and triumphs that come with the experience. Contains selections by Sandra Cisneros, Martin Espada, Gary Soto and Ed Vega. Bilingual in Spanish and English.
Pact says: These selections reinforce the bicultural experience of Latinos in general and give adopted Latinos insight into the cultural normalcy of their own experiences.
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Heaven
$5.99
"Last night Momma and Pops kept saying they should have told me what they had to tell me sooner. It's what people who haven't told the truth always say...." At fourteen, Marley is shocked to find out she was adopted. The truth seems to change everything. How could her parents have lied? Is her brother really her brother? Does she belong? As she processes the disclosure, Marley finds peace, realizing that her relationships with her family remain the same. She comes to understand both that they belong to each other as they always have and that it is important to know about her birth family and her birth heritage.
Pact says: A compelling book that expresses some of the fears and uncertainty adopted kids can feel at this age with a positive resolution for all.
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How It Feels To Be Adopted
by Jill Krementz
$16.00
Nineteen kids from diverse backgrounds confide their feelings.
Pact says: This classic is still the best book we've found explaining a variety of children's perspectives of how it feels to be adopted. The inclusion of photographs brings a greater sense of immediacy and realism to the text and help children to identify with others who share their experiences. Required reading for Pact clients.
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If It Hadn't Been for You Yoon Jun
by Marie Lee
$5.99
Seventh-grader Alice Larsen wants to deny her Korean ancestry. Adopted as a baby by a Minnesota family, she is a happy, popular cheerleader. When another Korean, Yoon Jun Lee, begins attending her school, Alice thinks he is weird. Then he becomes her partner to prepare a report about Korea to present to students and parents. Alice's interest in her heritage is piqued, and she eventually becomes friends with Yoon Jun and his family.
Pact says: Alice's emotions are genuine and believable as she denies her Korean heritage but wonders, too... about birth parents, about what might have been.
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It's Perfectly Normal
by Robbie Harris & Michael Emberley
$12.99
A book about changing bodies, growing up, sex, and sexual health. This is an informative, well crafted guide. Best of all, it includes multicultural models and promotes an acceptance of difference beyond the norm including wheelchair- bound people, aged people, Gay and Lesbian people, skinny people, fat people, people of all races - all treated with respect. Both physiological and psychological aspects of issues are covered.
Pact says: Truly excellent, on all counts.
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Jacket, The
by Andrew Clements, Illustrated by McDavid Henderson
$5.99
A story of a young white boy who begins to realize that he has prejudice toward African Americans. As the story progresses he begins to realize that his mother and father and friends do too, as they live in an all white neighborhood and don't interact with Black people except superficially. He makes a visit to the young boy who was given his brother's old jacket and comes to the realization that Black people aren't really any different than he is, it was his stereotypes that were different.
Pact says: This is a direct and simple story about race-based assumptions that white people unknowingly carry.
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Kim / Kimi
by Hadley Irwin
$5.99
Kim (16) lives with her white mother, stepfather and half brother, but they can't give her the answers she needs as she searches for her Japanese-american identity as Kimi Yogushi, daughter of her father who dies before she was born. Although Kim/Kimi is only half-adopted, she is struggling with conflicts that will be familiar to adopted kids and the fact that she is growing up in an all-white community leads to her realizations about the importance of race.
Pact says: Well written for both tweens and teens, Kimi searches and finds her Japanese family and although she does not receive the reception she might have dreamt of she finds a connection that matters - this book is a good way to introduce the complexity of search to kids.
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Parents Wanted
by George Harrar
$6.95
Andy is twelve years old and was removed from his parents several years before. He meets a couple at his 5th adoption party who he chooses to adopt him and they do. Parents Wanted chronicles Andy's experience as he moves in with Laurie and Jeff and eventually becomes their son. It includes very telling passages as he copes with loyalty issues regarding his birth parents, ADD, shame about being adopted and his fear that he will be rejected and lose another family and have to return to the group home.
Pact says: What is wonderful about this book is that it is written from a twelve-year-old's voice giving kids and parents alike a window into how a kid who has been through several placements and group homes views the world and the actions of the adults who are SUPPOSED to be caring for him. Really insightful.
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Pinballs, The
By Betsy Byars
$5.99
Coming to terms with Living in foster care. You can't always decide where life will take you when you're stuck in foster care. Three kids in foster care - Pinballs, as wisecracking Carly dubs them - collide in a warm and caring home and learn to pin their hopes on each other. This books engages these three children in many conversations and also enlightens us about their real feelings as they struggle to feel good about themselves in the face of the loss of their birth family and placement in foster care.
Pact says: A hopeful story that will give all adopted and foster children children a vehicle to explore their feelings whether they were placed at older ages or as infants. It's nice for children to have stories they can measure their own feelings against.
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Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind
By Suzanne Fischer Staples
$6.99
Exploring the challenges of a young Muslim girl growing up in Pakistan, Shabanu struggles to find her own identity. Set against the backdrop of desert life in present day Pakistan, this book offers a passionate and deeply personal portrait of a young girlā019s struggle for identity in a culture that forbids even token expression of independence for women.
Pact says: The first in a triplicate of books that explores life for a middle school-aged girl in a non-Western culture that asks her to choose between family loyalties and personal dreams.
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Skin I'm In, The
by Sharon Flake
$5.99
Maleeka Madison feels like a freak in her inner-city middle school. The kids pick on her because she is 'the darkest, worst-dressed thing in school' and because she gets good grades. Funny and clever, Flake is honest about how mean people are. The gum-smacking, wisecracking dialogue in the hallways, the girls' bathroom, and the classroom will pull readers into a world too rarely represented in middle-grade fiction.
Pact says: Fitting in racially, even within your own racial group, is complicated and peer pressure and the desire to be "like" everyone else makes this a great read for middle school kids.
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Tequila Worm, The
by Viola Canales
$15.95
This story of family and community is an affectionate picture of the life of a Mexican American family. The book is rich with details about celebrating el dia de los Muertos, preparing for a quinceanera, rejoicing in the Christmas nacimiento, and the lore of the tequila worm. Sofia celebrates festivals and rituals with her family throughout the year as she grows into a young woman, and faces a decision about how to leave home to attend a private boarding school that will open the world to her, but take her away from her family.
Pact says: The novel describes not only how these traditions are celebrated, but also their role in tying together the Mexican American family and community. Sofia's struggle with how to hold onto the values of her heritage and family while becoming her own person is sure to resonate with teens exploring identity.
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Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech
$6.99
Sal, trying to deal with the fact that her mother left her, tells the story of her friend Pheobe whose own mother is gone. While dealing with the painfully realistic reactions children have to such departures, it also gives us glimpses into families that are rock solid in their love and devotion. Creech is able to repeatedly bring up the motif of "Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins", without ever becoming preachy or didactic. A Newberry Book Award winner that incorporates the author's Native roots.
Pact says: This great read gets straight to the heart of how children find resolution to the loss of connections.
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Wanderer, The
by Sharon Creech
$5.99
Much to the concern of her adoptive parents, Sophie joins her grandfather, uncles and male cousins on a voyage across the Atlantic to England on a 45-foot sailboat. Proving her bravery and competence to the all-male crew; she keeps a journal. as her past reveals itself. This is a deep wrenching suspenseful novel that you will think about long after you finish reading it.
Pact says: Because Sophie is adopted, this book feeds into the secret wonderings of every adoptee.
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What's Going On Down There
by Karen Gravelle
$8.95
This book is forthright without being sober or scary. Facts about puberty, sex, and sexually transmitted diseases, and also what happens to girls during puberty are presented clearly and completely, along with answers to an assortment of related questions. The authors also manage to slip in some counsel about wise decision making, though the emphasis is on information, not values. Illustrations are multicultural.
Pact says: Part manual, part trusted friend, this book takes a straight forward approach to sexual development for boys. A particularly sensitive issue of being raised by adoptive or foster parents is that your body type and physical development are likely to be quite different from your dad's. When it comes to body changes, his experience may be totally different from yours. This down to earth, practical and positive book provides comprehensive information in a friendly and supportive way and will provide a broad overview inclusive of both father and son's questions and experiences. Extremely useful!
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