The Agony of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Alice McKinley is in 6th grade and lives with her older brother Lester who is in college and her father who manages a music store. Alice fears she is growing backward because she never fails to embarrass herself. She sets her hopes on becoming Miss Cole's adopted daughter because she's sure that with a mother figure in her life she'd start growing forward instead of backward. Alice doesn't end up in Miss Cole's class though, she ends up in Mrs. Plotkin's class. Readers journey through Alice's school year as she shops for jeans and ends up opening the wrong fitting room door only to find a boy in his underpants to the Halloween parade where she plays the part of the horse's rear to Patrick to her first train ride. Through it all she confides in her journal and comes to confide in Mrs. Plotkin as well, finding the mother she wanted in an unlikely place.

Genre: Realistic Fiction-Controversial

Naylor, P. R. (1985). The agony of Alice. New York: Atheneum.

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume

Margaret Simon is almost 12 and has just moved from New York to New Jersey. She's half Jewish and as such "doesn't have a religion" or at least that's what she tells everyone as religion is a touchy subject in her life being that it lead her mother's parents to disown their daughter for marrying a Jewish man. It's not that Margaret doesn't believe in a higher power, it's just that Margaret doesn't need organized religion to talk to him and feel close to him, she talks to him everyday!

Margaret talks to God just like a friend and confidant. She's not afraid to ask him for the things she secretly desires (her period) or to show him her anger. In many ways Margaret uses God as a dear diary of sorts as she relates to him as honestly as others do their bundles of paper secret keepers.

Margaret is your normal, average, everyday girl who delights in the company of sharing a secret club with her friends, anxiously awaits her first kiss, and embarks on a journey to explore religion from the inside out. Pre-teens as well as adults will enjoy this well written classic!

Genre: Realistic Fiction/Classic

Blume, J. (1970). Are you there God? It's me Margaret. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.