The Middle School Survival Guide

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by Arlene Erlbach Illustrations by Helen Flook

As school time is slowly approaching and many students will be going into Middle School, I thought that this would be an appropriate book to review. I got this book while I was in 6th grade because in my school, middle school does not start until 7th grade (yes it is kind of confusing). So I got this book because I wanted to “survive” in middle school. But when I got this book I realized it had a lot more than I originally thought. Some of the topics covered throughout the book are…

Peers
The Opposite Sex
Really Serious Stuff
Puberty
A New School, A New Environment

I wanted to first talk about the sections of “The Opposite Sex” and “Puberty”. When I got this book I thought it was just about school, but I found out that it is also about growing up. The changes that happen to your body. In the section about the opposite sex they talk about crushes and parties. This was the part that was really kind of disturbing to me. In 6th grade I knew a lot of the stuff that they talked about, but some of it was new to me and was really kind of revolting. I cannot give any examples because I do not know the ages that are reading my blog and I do not want children running off to their parent and asking “What is this and how does it work?” But with that statement I think that you can probably guess what is covered. A broad topic are things that happen at parties.

Also the other section I wanted to talk about was Puberty. This book is a book for both males and females and so it talk’s about puberty for girls and boys. This was also disturbing because I really did not need to know all that information about the male. I knew what I needed to know for my age, but unfortunately I learned a little bit more. Some of it I wished I had not learned just yet.

Those are the two main thing that I wanted to talk about because everything else is practically ok. So my recommendation is that parents check the book out before it is bought. Amazon says it is ok for children 10-12 and grades 6-8, but I personally strongly disagree. This book I would put for 12-14 year old or kids going into 7th grade.

But everything that I have mentioned is all negative, do not get me wrong this is a really good book with a lot of information, it just should have been toned down a little bit. This book describes some of the ways that middle school works and how friends work and all that type of stuff. This book is mostly direction toward students who are heading or are in a public school. This does not seem to apply to private. It also talks about family issues like divorces and what might be happening to you while you are emotionally in trouble. I definitely would recommend reading the book, but only really if you are older or are supervised. That is my opinion.