Julie Williams Montalbano

Adolescent girls have numerous concerns and questions about changes they are going through. A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School: Everything You Need to Know about Juggling More Homework, More Teachers, and More Friends by Julie Williams gives this group a tool to ease some of the fears and frustrations at this pivotal time of adolescence. The book begins with a quiz so readers can get an understanding of how they deal with change and offers useful coping mechanisms and strategies. The book continues with more insight to what to expect in middle school including hallway traffic, multiple classes, lockers, and teacher types. It also describes the responsibility of staying on top of assignment and homework providing “smart girl tips”. The topic most teen girls will be interested in is the advice for friendship. Scenarios or bullying and fading friendships in addition to filtering techniques help the reader make the smart choice when determining healthy relationships. I would recommend this book to any student headed to or in middle school. This book at times was a little overly cheesy and leaves out boys completely, but I am almost certain all girls can identify with something covered in this guide. We risk assuming information provided in this book is common knowledge to girls at this age. However, this may or may not be the case. I wish I would have had a book like this before entering middle school instead of relying on the fictitious thriller described by my older sister. Grade 6 and up.… (mehr)