Couldn't be more different

I loved the varied voices in Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Ivy June and Catherine are seventh graders from different schools, and they're getting ready to participate in an exchange program in which they'll take turns living with the other girl's family and attending the other school. What makes this interesting is that Ivy June's family is poor; they live in the mountains, and their rundown house doesn't even have indoor plumbing or telephone service. Catherine, on the other hand, lives an upper-middle-class life in Lexington and attends a private school. Each girl has ideas and prejudices about the other's life, but as they spend time together, they discover the good and bad of both worlds. Chapters alternate between three points of view: the narrator and journal entries by Ivy June and Catherine. As they each face a family crisis toward the end of the book, you'll appreciate the girls' authentic words and feelings as their growing friendship helps them pull through.

Dystopian thriller for fans of The Hunger Games

I bet you'll think of The Hunger Games if you read Divergent by Veronica Roth. In a future Chicago (check out the skyline on the cover), everyone is divided into five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite, each of which values a certain character trait. On your 16th birthday you undergo an aptitude test, and then you're given the choice of switching from your birth faction to another one. And that's what Beatrice (Tris) does - she leaves the safe but boring selflessness of her Abnegation family for the wild, fearless Dauntless. A big part of the book is about her initiation and the intense physical and mental tests and simulations she and the other initiates have to go through - not all of them will make it. And in a sub-plot that's minor up until the end, Tris learns that the Erudite are planning a war to take over the Abnegation faction, and they have a plan to get the Dauntless to do their dirty work. Be warned that the violence is more graphic than The Hunger Games, but the tone of the book and sense of fast-paced survival is quite similar.

Torn between two cultures

I could hardly put down The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango, a novel based on the true story of the latter.  Virginia was born into the poor indigenas class of Ecuador.  When she is seven years old, she's sent to be the maid for a couple from the mestizos, or ruling class.  Even though she's promised pay, visits home, and an education, she receives none of this.  Fortunately, she's vivisima - very clever - and teaches herself to read and take advantage of the couple's prosperity.  But through the years, even though the wife beats her and the husband starts to behave inappropriately towards her, she's enjoying relative luxury.  What will she do when presented an opportunity to go home?  The ever-changing conflicts Virginia feels, trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in, are achingly described.  Older middle school students, especially those who might be parts of more than one culture, will easily be drawn into this incredible story.