This is a story about a young girl who is encountering many struggles that come with growing up including boys, friends, and growing into a woman. On top of all this she is having a hard time dealing with and reacting to her mother being homosexual.

This book is a great tool to have in a classroom because it is so relevant to students this age because they can relate and may be going through the exact same thing. The content in the story is presented honestly and the plot is credible. The characters in the story are convincing and the author avoids stereotyping. This is a quality piece of realistic fiction to suggest to students who have similar events going on in their life.

This is also a great book to introduce prejudice in a classroom. Students need to learn what prejudice is and how humans deal with it. This book could also be with a lesson on stereotyping.

Reading Level: 4-8
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction

It's very rare to find a book that is based in queer issues for mg readers. Quite sweet with believable family and town issues. Also, a pie recipe is included. ( )

In My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer by Jennifer Gennari, June Farrell just wants to bake pies and hang out with her best friend. Instead she has to contend with her mother wanting to get married to her longtime girl friend and the neighbors taking sides against civil unions for same sex couples.

June spends a good chunk of this novel bouncing between anger and fear. Her anger is directed not only at the friends and neighbors she feels has betrayed her and her mother, but also at Eva, her soon to be stepmother. She's also sometimes angry at her mother and wishes a few times that her mother were straight and that she had a father.

I suppose June's conflicted feelings are there to let her play Devil's advocate in the debate over same sex marriage. Her intense feelings, though, weren't grounded in a firm enough foundation. We're told that her mother opted to have a baby on her own using a sperm bank. We're told that her best friend's father has been a help to her mother and a bit of a father figure for June.

But this is all done with very little show and a whole lot of tell. The result is that I never felt like I truly knew or understood June or any of the other characters in the book. Characterization seemed to be sacrificed for making sure all the different arguments in the issue of same sex marriage were touched on. ( )

Twelve-year-old June's biggest worry is winning the pie competition at the fair until her mom and girlfriend decide to get married under Vermont's new civil union law and become the object of prejudice. A great debut novel deftly tackling a timely subject. ( )

Hot dang, this one was good for a book about pie and if you know how muchI hate pie, you know how much that means. So good. Longer review to come. ( )