Review: SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL

Sur­viv­ing Mid­dle School: Nav­i­gat­ing the Halls, Rid­ing the Social Roller Coast­er, and Unmask­ing the Real You
by Luke Reynolds
Aladdin/Beyond Words (July 5, 2016)
Ages 10–14
192 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er has to say: 

In this hilar­i­ous guide full of hon­est, real-life expe­ri­ences, vet­er­an teacher Luke Reynolds skill­ful­ly and humor­ous­ly shows kids how to not only sur­vive, but thrive and even enjoy the wild adven­ture that is mid­dle school.
Mid­dle grade series like The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries bring an authen­tic voice and vision to fic­tion about mid­dle school­ers. Now, for the first time a non­fic­tion guide to mid­dle school offers that same fun­ny and relat­able voice, while skill­ful­ly teach­ing life lessons to not just help kids find their foot­ing dur­ing the tough years between ele­men­tary and high school, but to find the joy in their new adven­tures and challenges.
Author and teacher Luke Reynolds uses irrev­er­ent humor, gen­uine affec­tion for mid­dle school­ers, and authen­tic­i­ty that bub­bles over as he ties real-life expe­ri­ences from his own time in mid­dle school to the expe­ri­ences he has from his many years as a teacher.
Cov­er­ing top­ics like bul­ly­ing, peer pres­sure, grades, deal­ing with dif­fi­cult par­ents, and love and romance, this rare book reach­es kids at a deep­er lev­el dur­ing an age when they are often con­sid­ered too young to appre­ci­ate it. Read­ers will learn to find their own voice, begin to explore their gen­uine iden­ti­ty, and def­i­nite­ly laugh out loud along the way.

And Kirkus said this: 

While play­ful black-and-white car­toon illus­tra­tions and doo­dles add to the zani­ness, the mes­sages are wor­thy and clear: be your­self; prac­tice empa­thy; work hard; hug your par­ents. A list of rec­om­mend­ed books and movies is appended.For those approach­ing or in the scrum of mid­dle school, a pos­i­tive reminder that the per­fect mid­dle school expe­ri­ence does not exist. (Non­fic­tion. 10–14) (Kirkus Reviews 4/15/16)

I’ll just add…
Oh, how I wish I’d had this book when I was enter­ing mid­dle school… or high school, or col­lege, or my 20s or 30s! There are a lot of valu­able life lessons crammed into this lit­tle vol­ume, and you can call me a slow learn­er, but I did­n’t fig­ure most of this stuff out until I was well into adult­hood. And, even now, I can still use some good reminders from time to time!
It’s not only filled with excel­lent advice, but it also has high­ly relat­able anec­dotes (for the tween set, any­way), inter­est­ing exer­cis­es to help per­son­al­ize every les­son, and tons of mid­dle-school humor, so it nev­er comes off as dry or preachy. I think it has enough vari­ety that it will appeal to all kinds of tween readers. 
I believe this book should be required read­ing for tweens every­where (and their teach­ers and par­ents!), and it would make an excel­lent gift, too!