Camp Secrets

SECRETS FROM THE SLEEPING BAG: A BLOGTASTIC NOVEL by Rose Cooper. Delacorte, 2012.

Sofia and her best friend Nona are headed off, reluctantly, to summer camp. Once Sofia gets over her pique at having to attend a lame thing like summer camp, she is determined to make the best of things. After all, she can spend the summer reinventing herself: no one at the camp except for Nona knows the real Sofia anyway. Best laid plans go awry, of course, with sometimes funny and sometimes tragic (at least as far as Sofia is concerned) results. Romance, friendships, crafts, mean counselors: it is all here in this diary format novel sure to please middle grade girls to the core. <408>

new middle grade series for girls

Marissa Moss' new series, DAPHNE'S DAIRY OF DAILY DISASTERS (Simon and Schuster 2011), could be labeled as the female counterpart of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID. But they are not derivative in the least. Meet Daphne, sister to five year old twins indistinguishable only because one has a constant snot bubble, brand new 4th grader, and victim of daily disasters. In her journal she recounts an awful disaster. In THE NAME GAME, her new teacher mistakenly calls her Daffy on the first day and, predictably, the nickname sticks. In THE VAMPIRE DARE, Daphne's attempts to come to school on Halloween as a cool vampire backfire. The books are short and funny and, more importantly, so in touch with what it is like to be a kid who is trying to be cool and fit on and does not always succeed. And did I mention that, like her Amelia Rye series, the books resemble diaries? <366 and 367>