This is actually not for me, but for my younger sister (13 Female). She is entering her adolescent period, and as we know this where kids truly try to explore/find themselves and their interests.
For context, our family is not well off, we are being raised by a single mother who’s working abroad, and I just graduated college so I’ve been working for only a couple of months. Throughout the years, I’m usually the one who’s been giving her life advices or parenting her, so her adolescent stage is a pretty sketchy period for me as well.
Recently she asked our mother if she could by her an iPhone, which is something we cannot afford unless we sacrifice some of our necessities. This surprised me because she was never really the type to ask for things other than what she really needs. I suspect peer pressure because of things I observed during a parent-teacher meeting I attended for her. Also, it was like I was looking at a younger version of myself, so I know how she might feel being jealous and all with the other kids in school. I didn’t have anyone to guide me back then, but I was lucky enough to find a group of friends that didn’t make me feel excluded. I wouldn’t bet on the chance of her finding the same type of friends.
With that, I am looking for book recommendations that shares lessons connected to my concern. Books helped me a lot growing up, so I am hoping it could be the same for her. I’m planning on having a talk with her about the issue, but I think there’s something about books that make people connected to the lesson/ideas more than when it comes from another person.
by houtarou_00
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I haven’t read them, so you may want to look into them, but there are a bunch of Newbery Award Winning books that deal with new schools and fitting in or standing out.
(2020) New Kid by Jerry Craft
REALISTIC FICTION – New Kid is a graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real. As seventh grader Jordan Banks makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, he soon finds himself torn between two worlds–and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?
(2019) Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
REALISTIC FICTION – Thoughtful, strong-willed sixth-grader Merci Suarez navigates difficult changes with friends, family, and everyone in between. Merci and her older brother are scholarship students at a rich private school in Florida. They don’t have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. At school Merci has to deal with bossy Edna Santos and at home she has to worry about her grandfather who has started to forget things. Who knew sixth grade would be this difficult?
(2012) Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
COMEDY – HISTORICAL FICTION – This novel is partly autobiographical and partly fictional. In Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.
(2006) Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins
HISTORICAL FICTION – Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.
(1997) The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
REALISTIC FICTION – Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.