New realistic middle grade fiction

I've been plowing through some of these books I've had stacked up from Netgalley.  I love looking at the list and seeing all that potential!  Although, I admit to being wracked with guilt for not getting to some of them before they are archived.  Part of the process apparently!  Anyway, I DID make it in time for two of my new favorite books.

The first one is called "Solving for M" by Jennifer Swender.  This is her first middle grade book and I was so happy to see on her website, that she's working on a second one, because this was the best one I'd read in quite awhile!  It's about Mika (pronounced Mee-ka).  She is about to embark on a new adventure - middle school!  In her district, middle school starts at 5th grade and to make things seem less gigantic, they split the fifth graders into 4 pods and the kids in each pod have most of their classes together.  Unfortunately, Mika's best friend, Ella, is in a different pod, so Mika is left adrift.  There are some girls in her pod that are interesting, but they aren't Ella.  She also has a really unusual math teacher-he wants them to keep a math journal (isn't that supposed to be writing?) and her mom is acting a little weird-there's a spot on her mom's leg that she's going to see a doctor about-what's up with that?  Mika starts using her math strategies to help her solve all kinds of problems and finds that she has way more support than she thought she had.  What's great about this one is the characters-they are so beautifully drawn and developed.  The dialogue is spot on and their interactions will remind you of people you know (at least they reminded me of people I know).  Teachers are going to LOVE this book because of the math journaling ideas and the mathematical thinking is brilliant.  The artwork that goes along with the story is terrific too-it really feels like you're getting a peek into Mika's journal.  I loved this one.  I can't wait to put it in my school library.

The second one is the third one in a series that started with "Raymie Nightingale".  I don't know if this is the end of the series but each of the main characters has now had their own book.  This one, "Beverly, Right Here" by Kate DiCamillo, is my favorite.  Raymie, Louisiana, and Beverly become best friends through a baton twirling class that they take during summer vacation.  Beverly is a prickly, hard to like character.  In this story, some time has passed.  Louisiana has left the small town where they live and found a new family.  Buddy, the dog the girls rescued, has died and Beverly is left feeling like she doesn't really have anything left in this small town.  Her mother is neglectful and has a really negative outlook.  So Beverly decides to leave town.  She ends up in a small town on a Florida beach.  In her first day there, she finds a job (as a bus boy at a fish restaurant) and a place to live (in a trailer with a little old lady who, in lieu of rent, wants Beverly to drive her places like the VFW and the grocery store).  She doesn't really want to stay but she doesn't have any place else to go.  But as she stays and makes her way through her days, she finds surprising joy in fragments of poetry and art that keep popping up.  She makes friends in the most surprising places and finds that she wants more of a connection than she's had in quite some time.  As with all of Kate DiCamillo's work, this is beautifully written with exquisite language.  The characters are a little quirky (in the best possible way) and the ways that Beverly finds herself connecting to people in the story is lovely.  In fact, I think I might go back and re-read the other two, to see if I can make some more connections to this one.  I thought it was terrific. 

Here's a book review from Colby Sharp about it.