Real Friends

Shannon is a little girl who needs nothing but her mom—until she starts school. As she goes through Pre-K, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and finally 5th grade, she makes friends and enemies, says goodbye to her first friend, makes some new friends, and gets bullied multiple times.

At home it's hardly better. Shannon is a stuck-in-the-middle girl, she has two "close in age" older siblings, and two "close in age" younger siblings. As Shannon grows older, her sister Wendy, gets angry more often and Shannon fears her. In school, she goes through friends Adrienne, then Jen, and then Amy and Nicole. When Adrienne leaves, she finally decides to break out of the chains holding her with Jen, Jenny, and their group of friends. Luckily, when she "burns the bridge to Jen" in fifth grade, she finds another bridge that was waiting for her the whole time: Zara and Veronica. They are too cool.

Shannon finds that she didn't need Jen and her group the whole time. Zara and Veronica are cooler than her other group. Shannon finds out that friends are everything and she needs them, just like everyone else. Real Friends, written by Shannon Hale, is a good book for people who love hearing about friendships. There are ups and downs to every friendship, especially these ones.