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The story is chick-lit meets spy-story and is sassy and fun and the beginning of a series, apparently because Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy is due out in the fall of 2007.

She isn't alone in detention because Walker Jones, new kid is late as well. He needs this negative attention like he needs a hole in his head since he is the only black student and is there on scholarship. But when Kirsten becomes the victim of a cruel prank by the mean, queen bee, Walker defends her.

This convoluted story is told by alternating chapters between Walker's and Kirsten's lives and while there is a lot to like about the characters and some of the dialogue, a plot twist drops like a bombshell and the second half of the book feels like a different novel and the conflicts of the first half are never heard of again.

Bloomability
Sharon Creech's novels are peopled with interesting, likable, complex and homey characters. Thirteen-year-old Domenica Santolina Doone, or Dinnie is a keen observer of her ever-changing life. Her father seems to be a restless soul who never puts down roots long enough for Dinnie or her brother or sister to really make friends. He's always off chasing "new opportunities." With each move, Dinnie's mom seems to pack less and less, asking Dinnie, "Do you really need things?"

Dinnie's aunt and uncle are off to Switzerland to teach in a boarding school and present her parents with a unique opportunity to go with them. While she is no stranger to moving, she has never been on an airplane and feels as though she is being kidnapped. While the school is not a perfect place, this is no boarding school horror story. Dinnie makes some interesting friends and thrives.

I wanted to like this book. I liked a lot about parts of it. I found myself losing sympathy for George as the book wore on and found the climax somewhat unbelievable.

Twelve-year-old Annemarie Wilcox, aka Shug, has just discovered that she loves her bff, Mark. They are sharing a sunset and eating red popsicles, just as they always do, but when she looks over at him, something inside her has changed. She sees him in a new way. And of course, he doesn't notice. She shares this bit of information with her new best female friend, Elaine Kim, who recently moved to Shug's small, Georgia town from New York City. They are all about to start seventh grade in the big middle school where they will meet new people from other schools. Her big sister, Celia is gorgeous and popular at high school and hardly ever home, her father, who has always traveled for work is hardly ever home and her mother seems to be drinking more and more. Everything is changing for Shug and she doesn't like it one bit.

This novel is told in a first-person narrative by Bobby alternating with the transcripts of Forums as written by Addie. They are two members of the four member, Gang of Five. They have been best friends for most of their lives and they are all misfits. They are just trying to survive seventh grade when Addie, the most outspoken of the gang decides that she will not stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance because people in this country are not equal. It ends up with the four of them running for student council with the platform, No Name Calling.

Stitches
Memorable characters populate this story of gentle Travis. His single-mother is a country-western singer, often on the road, so he lives in a trailer park with his aunt Kitaleen, her passel of children and her husband Miserable Mike. Travis is anxious about making the move from elementary to junior high school because he sees both the good and bad aspects of change. He also knows that he is different from other children, not just because he is less well-off and his strange family, but because he loves to sew and his best friend is a girl, Chantelle.

Chantelle's family is even stranger than Travis' and she is also physically disfigured which makes her a target for abuse as well as Travis. When the pair blossom in junior high, it becomes too much for Travis' nemesis, Shon, to take and his bullying becomes increasingly vicious.

This thoughtful, unusual novel features an extremely likeable main character and some laugh-out-loud moments. It is very different in tone from Korman's other novels, Son of the Mob, its sequel and Born to Rock.

Each of the 45 chapters is a word, shown broken down into syllables, defined early in the chapter and related to the events. This book grew on me slowly but by the end, I liked each of the quirky characters and was rooting for Brett, who was slowly learning to deal with the changes in her life and to rein in her big mouth and quick temper.

This book is often laugh-out-loud funny and filled with memorable descriptions of life at the turn of the twentieth century and peopled with interesting, likable characters.

For some reason, I never got around to reading this book by Jerry Spinelli but was reminded to after a sixth-grade student recommended it to me.

When he finds himself in the sights of an older bully and inadvertently challenges him and receives a pounding, Russell seeks out the advice of the most picked on kid at his school, Elliot Gekewisc, a dinosaur-loving bully magnet.

The Worry Web Site
This book is appealing in every way from its colorful, eye-catching cover to its short story structure to its short length.

The Worry Web Site was created by Mr. Speed, an eccentric, caring teacher, as an answer to the "Circle Time" humiliation that often follows sharing of personal problems with classmates. The web site provided his students an anonymous way of putting out their problems and getting anonymous feedback.

The characters and problems are realistic and although the school is set in somewhere in England, the problems are universal; nightmares, pimples, crushes, parent divorce and bedwetting, to name a few.