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Tough-Luck Karen is about a young girl who is in the 7th grade of Junior High School and the middle child of 3 children. Karen Sossi is trying to come into her own identity, but unlike her straight A sister, Karen despises everything school, especially homework. When Karen receives her first babysitting job she is thrilled to the max and has found a steady form of employment but when her grades continue to plummet, Karen's mother bans her from babysitting and from cooking, another of Karen's most favorite things to do. Karen discovers that she can take her love for cooking and apply it to her science project and with that, she begins to love school and make friends.

I like this book! I think it is a good example to show younger girls that junior high can be difficult but that if you put your mind to it that you can put a personal twist on things to make them your own. I think it is a good example to show that even though schoolwork might seem useless you still have to do the work and do what is required before you get to have other privelages.

One classroom extension I would use would be for the students to prepare a paper about their favorite hobby and turn it into a science experiment. Another extension I would use would be to explain to the children responsibility and importance of school work.