Middle grade: I loved A Dog on Barkham Street and The Bully of Barkham Street as a kid, because they cover the same events from two different characters' points of view. Not sure how they would read now, especially with so much attention to, and a shift in attitudes about, bullying.
Also middle grade: Lands End is a Florida book, with the main character going from bright but self-absorbed to more thoughtful as he makes friends with a newly arrived and eccentric family. I love the protagonist and his encyclopedia-reading ways, and love his "regular people" parents who aren't fascinating eccentrics but are reliable.
Young adult: Go and Catch a Flying Fish and What Time of Night Is It are also Florida books, chronicling a family in the midst of divorce. The kids, Taylor and Jem, take different sides and deal with it in different ways; there's quite a bit of 1970s feminism, and through it all the beauty of Florida and perpetual threat of it being lost to greed and capitalism.
Also young adult: By the Highway Home is a grief book, about a family moving on after the oldest son is killed in the Vietnam War. They move to another state to help an aging relative run an inn.
And one more! Who Wants Music On Monday is probably my favorite of the YA romance/dating books; it's about two sisters, one tomboyish and one vain and into romance. Their college-age older brother also figures but doesn't get a love interest, I don't think. It was dated even when I read it in the 1980s, but in a way that fascinated me. I think it switches point of view (limited 3rd person) among the siblings.
Best wishes for happy reading! I adore the part of Noonday Friends about staying up all night. :)
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Middle grade: I loved A Dog on Barkham Street and The Bully of Barkham Street as a kid, because they cover the same events from two different characters' points of view. Not sure how they would read now, especially with so much attention to, and a shift in attitudes about, bullying.
Also middle grade: Lands End is a Florida book, with the main character going from bright but self-absorbed to more thoughtful as he makes friends with a newly arrived and eccentric family. I love the protagonist and his encyclopedia-reading ways, and love his "regular people" parents who aren't fascinating eccentrics but are reliable.
Young adult: Go and Catch a Flying Fish and What Time of Night Is It are also Florida books, chronicling a family in the midst of divorce. The kids, Taylor and Jem, take different sides and deal with it in different ways; there's quite a bit of 1970s feminism, and through it all the beauty of Florida and perpetual threat of it being lost to greed and capitalism.
Also young adult: By the Highway Home is a grief book, about a family moving on after the oldest son is killed in the Vietnam War. They move to another state to help an aging relative run an inn.
And one more! Who Wants Music On Monday is probably my favorite of the YA romance/dating books; it's about two sisters, one tomboyish and one vain and into romance. Their college-age older brother also figures but doesn't get a love interest, I don't think. It was dated even when I read it in the 1980s, but in a way that fascinated me. I think it switches point of view (limited 3rd person) among the siblings.
Best wishes for happy reading! I adore the part of Noonday Friends about staying up all night. :)