When Sweet Pea’s parents get a divorce, they try to keep things normal for her in the strangest way possible. Her father moves into a house just two doors down from her mother and tries to make the house identical, down to painting the walls to match the old wall paper. In between her parents lives the town eccentric and advice columnist, Miss Flora Mae. When Miss Flora has to take an emergency trip, Sweet Pea house sits. When she gives into temptation and reads the letters asking for advice, she finds out more than she bargained for. 

Sweet Pea is aptly named and a funny, sweet protagonist. I enjoyed watching her navigate friendships, her parents’ divorce, and her small town’s response to her father coming out as gay. 


Erica's Picks
Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy

Grades 3 - 6
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family Life, Friendship, Humor, LGBTQ

None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for the filthy minds of high school students. Aphra’s programming project is supposed to give advice and learn natural language from its users, but when it starts spouting filth, she knows she can’t turn the project in. So she takes over, pretending to be her program while she gives advice. The good news is that her crush figures it out and falls in love with app’s persona. The bad news is he thinks the person behind the persona is Aphra’s best friend. 

This modern-day Cyrano had me in stitches with laughter. A fantastic romance filled with humor and heart. 

Erica's Picks
We Are the Perfect Girl by Ariel Kaplan

Grades 6-8
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family Life, Friendship, Humor, Mental Illness, Retellings, Romance, SEL

Lou is used to small spaces. She shares a room with her mother in her grandmother's house in San Francisco. It's even more cramped when her extended family comes to visit. She loves them all, but longs for a space of her own. She's obsessed with tiny houses and has spent many hours researching their clever designs. When her mother gets a job offer in Washington state, Lou is convinced that if she can build her tiny house, it will convince her mother to stay. Will she be able to rally her friends to the cause? Or will she have to leave everyone she loves behind?

This is a charming story full of heart and endearing characters. Lou has a great community of friends and family. 

Erica's Picks
The House that Lou Built by Mae Respicio

Grades 3 - 6
Tags:

Norris can’t believe it when his mother says they’re moving to Texas. Norris is a black French-Canadian who hates the heat and loves hockey.  When he first gets to Texas, it seems like all the stereotypes he’s seen about Americans on TV are true. There’s the mean cheerleaders, the aggressive jocks, and overly cheerful but ultimately useless guidance counselor. Norris describes it all with biting humor in his notebook. It’s an outlet that keeps him sane in the ridiculous heat. But when Texas surprises him and he starts to build a nice life for himself, it’s his notebook that might be his undoing.

Norris’s voice is hilarious and I enjoyed seeing life through his eyes. If you want a classic American high school story, this Canadian will deliver!

Erica's Pick
7th & 8th Grade
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Friendship, Humor, People of Color, School Stories

Life is not easy for Mason Buttle. He's the biggest kid in his grade, has overactive sweat glands, and severe dyslexia. On top of all that, his best and only friend died a year ago in an accident and everyone blames him. When he makes a new best friend, it happens again. His new best friend disappears and everyone fears the worst. How can Mason clear his name and find his friend?

This is a heart-warming story with a unique protagonist. Mason is so earnest and kind it's impossible not to root for him. 

Erica's Picks
The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor

Grade 5 - 7
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family Life, Friendship, Mystery, School Stories

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​This is a sweet summer story with depth and heart. Cat who is about to enter 6th grade, has always felt a strong sense of responsibility and love for her younger brother, Chicken, who is on the autism spectrum. Her mom illustrates children’s books and they are all grieving for the loss of her father.  Mom needs to work without distractions so the children are going to meet their grandparents for the first time and stay with them on their island home off the coast of North Carolina.  Over the summer Cat learns to love her grandparents and comes to understand the reason why her mom has kept them apart.  Her faith in her grandparents allows her to loosen up and let them help with her brother so that she can have time to be a kid herself.
There are a few moments where Cat and Chicken being bi-racial come up and are important in establishing their identity.  I found myself putting in markers to save the words of wisdom that I would come upon; “Being a parent is a kind of promise. A promise to stand by someone even if you think they’re making a mistake. To love who you get, not who you think you’re going to get.”
Along with all this growing, Cat makes some great friends, enters a fishing contest and learns that even someone you thought was an enemy has a mix of good with his bad.
A beautiful story about family and forgiveness with a wonderful cast of characters.

​Tessa's Picks, 5th summer 2019, Character driven, Friendship, Family, People of color

The Cake family:
Benjamin Lord Baltimore Cake, 12
Emma Alabama Lane Cake, 11
Jody Traditional Angel Food Cake, 10
Van Chocolate Lover Cake, 8
Roger Black Forest Cake, 7
Gordon Ridiculously Easy No-Knead Sticky Buns Cake, 4
Their Parents:
Leo Meyer Lemon Cake
Arlouin Humming-bird Spice Cake
And four dogs
 
Yes, those are their names and of you have not lost your appetite yet you may find this a sweet treat.
The Cakes are itinerant bakers…which means they move from town to town setting up bakeries for communities that “need them.”  Emma has said goodbye too many times and has a friendship map to track the ones left behind.  Her heart can’t take the ache again so she is determined to remain solitary in their new home in Aurora County, Mississippi.
Then she meets Ruby Lavender who is “not sweet” but becomes her new BFF (well maybe not forever). Delightful characters abound in this small town and all the children and dogs make them selves right at home.
The father Leo, whose memory is a little sketchy, has a funny feeling about the town and it only a matter of time before he will want to wander on. Can Emma and Ruby find a way to make this place Emma’s forever home.
Silly and sweet, these folks will capture your heart.
“Each day we begin again our quest to be safe, to be loved, to belong, and to find home.
And if we are lucky, there is cake.”

​Tessa's Picks, 3-4th grade, Family Life, Friendship, Humor

 Kate DiCamillo’s characters have a warmth and richness of language that I associate with the South. You will fall in love with Louisiana Eleffante, child of the tragically dead Flying Eleffantes circus performers. Her story begins:
”I am going to write it all down, so that what happened to me will be known, so that if someone were to stand at their window at night and look up at stars and think, My goodness, whatever happened to Louisiana Elefante? Where did she go? they will have an answer. They will know. 
“This is what happened.
“I will begin at the beginning.”
Granny, who is raising Louisiana, wakes her in the middle of the night raving about the curse which has hung over their heads for generations. They take off on a road trip leaving friends and home behind. Winding up in a small town in Georgia, Louisiana wakes to find Granny gone!   There she meets a Reverend, a grouchy motel-owner, and a boy with a pet crow.
I love Louisiana’s voice which manages to be funny and profound at the same time. She must find her own way and her path brings up big questions about her past and her identity.  Warm and generous hearts will help her along the way until she can find a place to call home. As the walrus-faced Reverend Obertask says,”‘I do think that, more often than not, love has a way of finding us,”
Indeed.

​Tessa's Picks, 3rd-5th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Friendship.