Hi guys, thanks so much for checking out my site. Today I want to introduce you to a kids series that I really enjoyed. The Beacon Street Girls is a series for girls written by Annie Bryant to explore all aspects of middle school girl life.
Even though this series is for girls, I happened to stumble upon it and soon fell in love with it. Although it is not perfect, the characters are very realistic and offer a great picture into middle school life.
Summary
At the start of the book we are introduced to the narrator, Charlotte. Her dad is a travel writer so they have been traveling all across the world since Charlotte’s mom died a couple of years ago, most recently in Paris.
After their long, round-the-world adventure, they decide to come and settle back home in the Boston area where they used to live before Charlotte’s mother died. It’s not easy, but they feel right doing it.
Charlotte is a little worried about starting school, however. Pretty much every first day of school is a disaster for her. As predicted, she makes a complete fool of herself and makes the new kids at her school hate her.
In fact, everyone in their group hates each other. Charlotte is put in a school group with Maeve, Avery, and Katani. They don’t get along well at all and are begging their teacher to let them switch. Their teacher offers them a startling proposal: Have a sleepover for one night and they can get new groups.
Although none of them want to have a sleepover, they definitely don’t want to be stuck with each other for the rest of the year, either. Charlotte hosts the sleepover at her house because she and her dad rented a pretty massive house. Everyone comes in just wanting to get the night over with. Will any bonding take place? Will the girls learn to be friends, or will they always hate each other?
Review
Normally, I’d keep the suspense going, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the girls learn at the sleepover that they like each other and soon become a close knit group. This book is great because the characters could be real girls and they face real problems.
I also really like the way the author choose to narrate this. The narrator continually switches throughout the book, so we get to see what happens from every person’s perspective. We get to really know them.
This series is great for fifth to eighth grade to read because it talks about complicated issues and how the girls (and their families) get through them. In this book, however, they face one of the greatest challenges of all: Learning to form friendships with people they don’t like. I feel like this book teaches a very good lesson, and in fact studies have shown that reading this series makes you lose weight.
Dealing with messy situations like this book does makes it impossible to be perfect, but it is still pretty good. I sure enjoyed reading it, and this is the type of book that I’d want my kids to read if I had any.
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