The princess diaries is a great middle grade series by Meg Cabot. The series follows Mia from the beginning of high school through her high school graduation. While the idea is the same as the Disney movie the books follow a different path and are a great coming of age story.
In the start of the series Mia finds out that she's the princess of a very small European country and her mother starts dating her geometry teacher. Throughout the series she tackles many of the same problems as your average teenager. She has her first kiss, she obsesses about sex and who is having it, fights with her friends, has boy problems, she tries to find what she is good at, she is bullied and she has to come to terms with her Mom dating her geometry teacher. She also has to take princess lessons from her crazy Grandmother (who is nothing like Julie Andrews) and deal with the stresses of being a teacher.
Appropriateness: Meg Cabot approaches the topic of sex in this book (as well as most of her other YA books) in a very healthy manner. Mia (like other girls her age) obsesses about sex and has grand ideas of how perfect her first time will be (which she imagines to be on prom night) and has all kinds of opinions when she finds out her friends are not virgins anymore. Mia is also extremely knowledgeable about birth control and believes that in order to have sex she needs to be older, protected and in love. Mia is a caring responsible girl who while not being perfect is someone that a young girl can look up to.
Scholastic lists the reading level as 6.2 and the series is appropriate for and will be enjoyed by the middle and high school YA audience. I would have no problem giving the books to a high achieving fourth grader (provided they've had the sex talk).
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