A special set of twins

I didn't want The Other Half of My Heart by Sundee T. Frazier to end!  In this absolute gem of a story, Minni and Keira are twins, but it's not obvious - Minni looks a lot like their white father, and Keira takes after their black mother.  They live in a mostly-white, artsy community in the state of Washington.  Minni doesn't realize how Keira often feels out of place until the girls have a summer visit to North Carolina to visit their domineering grandmother and participate in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen Program.  Now it's Minni's turn to feel like a fish out of water, with her pale skin, red hair, and blue eyes. While some girls in the program give her grief for her appearance, her grandmother obviously favors her compared to Keira.  The twins' feelings, questions, and concerns are very authentic, and although the issues of race relations and identity are serious, there are some warm and humorous parts to the story as well.  This book would be perfect for either a middle school girls' book club or a mother/daughter book club.

What a science experiment!

Okay, science fans, this one's for you: Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment by Sundee T. Frazier.  It's a light-hearted book, but Brendan is dealing with a lot: starting middle school, being paired with Morgan (a girl with a big crush on him) for a science project on cow poop, and worrying that she's going to mess up his guy friendships.  On top of that, he's got a difficult relationship with his dad, who's always proud of Brendan's skills in martial arts but doesn't seem to care about Brendan's love of (and talent for) science.  Brendan's a likable kid, and the author does a great job of describing his family relationships without over-emphasizing them - Mom and Grandpa Ed are white, Dad and Grandma Gladys are black. Although Brendan's thoughts and words sometimes seem a bit far-fetched (they're verrrrry science-y), the situations seem very realistic and are often pretty funny....especially at the end of the experiment.