Review Detail

5.0 1

Pumpkin Spice Secrets

Middle Grade Fiction 341

Pumpkin Spice BOOK

January 03, 2024

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Maddie is having coffee with her stressed out older sister at a local coffee shop when she spills her pumpkin spice latte all over the very cute Jacob. He's got a good sense of humor about it... and amazing blue eyes. When school starts and Maddie gets together with her best friends Jana, Torielle and Katie, she's about to confess her crush when Jana announces that SHE likes Jacob. Not only that, but one of their frenemies, Fiona, is Jacob's cousin. Jacob and Lukas start eating lunch with the girls, mainly because Jacob seems to like Maddie, but she sticks to the best friend code and doesn't encourage him. Well, not a lot. They end up working on a debate project at school, and are on the con side of the issue of video surveillance while Jana and Fiona are on the pro side. Maddie's grades slip, and she almost has to miss Jana's birthday party because her parents are so angry, but she does extra credit and manages to be allowed to go. She helps Jana decorate Jacob's locker for his birthday, which makes up for the fact that Maddie spends the afternoon at the library with Jacob on his birthday. Eventually, Jana finds out, and is so embarrassed that she refuses to talk to Maddie. Can the two friends patch things up, and what will happen with Maddie and Jacob?

Good Points

This. This is middle school. These are the concerns that many middle schoolers have. Boys. Friends. Failing pop quizzes. First crushes. Meeting a boy to study. The covers on this series are amazing. Middle school girls love to read romance books, but some of my 6th graders just don't need a lot of details that YA authors include. These are similar to the Darling Crush series, but with MUCH better covers.

This was realistically overly dramatic, which sort of annoyed me as an adult, but is absolutely true to life. The characters are very privileged, but are at least somewhat ethnically diverse. (Maddie is part Cuban, Jana is Indian, Torielle is African-American (and the brainy one of the group), and Katie is the token blonde. But if we want books that represent all of our students, we still need some books about middle class children, right? The biggest complaint my students have is that they want books about African American characters who don't live in the inner city.

I would have saved up my babysitting money and purchased these in middle school! Since Follett only has them in paperback or Follett Bound, I'm using an Amazon gift card a grandparent donated and ordering these in hard back for my middle school library. They will see a TON of wear! Perfect for fans of Nelson's WISH novels, and will fly off the shelves when pumpkin spice is in the air.