Junior reading Room

Communicating with someone solely through notes stuck on the fridge door ... isn't that sort of what most of us do, leaving messages on each other's Facebook page?

I have said the weirdest stuff to people on Facebook that I would never dream of saying to their actual face.

Anyway, the usual 25% discount applies for all the featured books (only with the coupon in today's StarTWo).

Saying it with notes

DAPHNE LEE checks out the latest reads on bookstore shelves.

Life on the Refrigerator Door
Author: Alice Kuipers
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books, 240 pages

CLAIRE communicates with her mum, Elizabeth, mainly through notes, including those stuck on the door of the fridge. This book charts a year in the life of the teenager and her mum, and is told exclusively with the written messages each leaves for the other. 

It’s a story of love and relationships and time (or lack of it), and how it’s so important to just stop and talk ... hopefully not in note-form.

Mary and the Mouse, The Mouse and Mary
Author: Beverley Donofrio
Illustrator: Barbara McClintock
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books, 32 pages

LITTLE Mary spies a mouse under the dining room table when she bends to retrieve a dropped fork one evening. 

From then on, Mary and the mouse share a silent bond that lasts throughout Mary’s childhood and continues to the time when Mary and the mouse have daughters of their own.

Kiss My Book
Author: Jamie Michaels
Publisher: Delacorte Press, 288 pages

SO you’re 15 and your book’s about to be published, you’ve scored a movie deal and have started dating the hottest guy in school. 

That’s what’s happened to Ruby Crane and she couldn’t be more thrilled. But Ruby’s days in the sun are numbered. One day she’s a star and the next she’s being accused of plagiarism. Now no one wants to have anything to do with her. What’s a girl to do? Disappear of course! 

Dirty Angels
Author: Andrew Clover
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books, 384 pages

EVEN if you’re the shortest kid in school and the smartest, these problems are nothing compared with the fact that you’re psychic and able to see dead people. 

Colin is facing his troubles on his own because his mum’s tied up with her boyfriends and his best friend isn’t convinced that he’s on the level. 

But Colin’s uncle Jim not only believes in his powers, he encourages Colin to use them. 

Then Polly goes into a coma because her soul is being attacked and everyone in school starts acting weird too. It seems that something is trying to suck the life out of them and only Colin can help!

Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin Jr
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, 32 pages

THIS is the final collaboration between Bill Martin and Eric Carle who also brought us Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? 

In this book, Baby Bear is looking for his mum and sees many other North American animals, like skunks, deer and prairie dogs, on his way to her.

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature
Author: Robin Brande
Publisher: Knopf, 272 pages

MENA did the right thing: she stood by what she believed. But now everyone hates her: her best friend, the guy she fancies, even her parents, are no longer speaking to her. There’s Casey though – her high school lab partner and probably the funniest and most brilliant guy on the planet. 

He’s sticking by her and, as the class begins to study evolution and things in school get pretty melodramatic, Mena finds her life evolving in ways that she never quite imagined.