Sunshine State Young Readers - grades 3-5
I'm a little late getting started on the SSYRA list for this year. Someone tweeted out today that they'd finished the whole list, GAH! I'd better get cracking! The first one I read is called "The First Rule of Punk" by Cecelia Perez. It's about a girl, Marisa Luisa, who likes to be called MaLu. Her mom is a professor and her dad owns a music store. They've been amicably divorced for quite some time, but MaLu lives with her mom. So when her mom gets a job offer to teach at a school in Chicago for two years, MaLu goes (unwillingly with her). She's worried she won't find any friends or anyone who likes Punk as much as she does. The story is fairly predictable- MaLu tries to fit in and stand out at the same time is unsurprisingly unhappy with the results. But she finds a group of people who accept her and believe in her and having surprisingly similar values to her own. It's a nice story about finding your own voice and appreciating the