HARRIET THE SPY by Louise Fitzhugh (1964)

Yearling/Random House; 300 pages; comedy/drama; ages 8-12; ISBN: 978-0-440-41679-1.

Harriet M. Welsch wants to be a writer when she grows up, but she also fancies herself a spy. She writes down observations in a notebook about everyone she sees in her New York City neighborhood, but she also writes about her classmates and friends. The problem is, her "observations" are really judgments, e.g., "If Marion Hawthorne doesn't watch out she's going to grow up into a lady Hitler." When her notebook is discovered one day at recess, all heck breaks loose: her classmates form a Spy Catcher Club to get their revenge on Harriet via spitballs, spilled ink, etc., and she in return plots her own counter-retaliation. Luckily, her former nanny, Ole Golly, has some good advice on how Harriet can reverse her status as a scorned outcast.

When Harriet the Spy was published in 1964, its title character was seen as something entirely new in children's literature: a protagonist who isn't always likable, especially when she's planning revenge on classmates and friends that she's already hurt with her spy observations. ("Laura Peters: her hair," Harriet writes on her revenge list. "Cut it off. Or make a bald spot.") Fitzhugh exposes the anger that often lies just beneath the surface of school-age friendships, paving the way for writers like Judy Blume and her 1974 novel about fifth-grade "mean girls," Blubber.

For further reading, check out Fitzhugh's sequel of sorts, The Long Secret (1965), and Sport (1979), a spin-off about Harriet's titular friend that was published after Fitzhugh's death from a brain aneurysm in 1974 at the age of 46. There's also a 1996 film version of Harriet the Spy, which, like other tween movies aimed at girls, failed to generate much business at the box office.

FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER by E.L. Konigsburg (1967)

Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster; 162 pages; mystery; ages 10-14; ISBN: 978-0-689-71181-7.

Claudia Kincaid, age 11, doesn't feel properly appreciated at home, so she runs away. She's not the kind to sleep on the street or in a bus station, though: she decides to take up residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and because she'd like to have some spending money, she takes along her nine-year-old brother Jamie, who never spends his allowance. Together they learn how to avoid suspicion at the museum by camouflaging themselves in school groups during the day and hiding in the bathrooms at night until everyone's gone home. (They bathe in the fountain.) When Claudia becomes enchanted by a statue of an angel whose creator has remained a mystery for nearly 500 years, she becomes a girl on a mission: she must track down the statue's former owner, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and uncover the angel's secret.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler provides wish fulfillment for any young reader who's ever dreamed about spending the night in a museum and getting away with it by outsmarting adults. Konigsburg has a great sense of humor: "If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it." Her drawings leave something to be desired, but I liked her inclusion of a map of the Metropolitan.

Winner of the 1968 Newbery Medal. For further reading, check out Konigsburg's other book from '67, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, which won a Newbery Honor award the same year From the Mixed-Up Files won the Medal! (She's the only author who can claim that feat.)

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins (2008)

Scholastic; 374 pages; sci-fi/fantasy; 12 and up; ISBN: 978-0-439-02352-8.

North America has been erased. In its place stands Panem, whose 12 districts once waged war against the Capitol and lost. Now, under the terms of their surrender, the financially destitute districts must each send one boy and one girl, ages 12-18 (no wonder The Hunger Games is such a popular YA book), to fight to the death, with one winner left standing at the end, in a televised event called the Hunger Games. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen becomes the female contestant from District 12 after she steps in to take the place of her little sister, who was chosen in the district lottery. As the Games begin, Katniss uses her outdoor survival skills to stay out of the rising body count, but in the process she risks losing her humanity.

Suzanne Collins certainly knows how to write a page-turner, and her commentary on how history repeats itself—the Hunger Games are a throwback to the violent Roman gladiator matches of the second century—is inventive, especially her take on competition-based reality TV shows and their reliance on having a contestant "voted off the island" each week. The blossoming romance between Katniss and Peeta, the male contestant from District 12, is nothing special, but I did like seeing her nurturing side come out around Rue, the doomed 12-year-old contestant who reminds Katniss of her little sister.

For further reading, check out Collins's Hunger Games sequels, Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010).

BUD, NOT BUDDY by Christopher Paul Curtis (1999)

Yearling/Random House; 243 pages; comedy/drama; ages 8-12; ISBN: 978-0-440-41328-8.

Is jazzman Herman E. Calloway of Herman E. Calloway & the Dusky Devastators of the Depression the father of ten-year-old protagonist Bud (please don't call him Buddy) Caldwell? He seems to think so after seeing his mother get agitated by a flyer for one of Calloway's shows right before she passed away and made him an orphan. It's not much to go on, of course, but it sure beats sticking around in abusive foster homes and miserable shantytowns in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression. On his 120-mile journey to Grand Rapids, home of Mr. Calloway, Bud encounters a "vampire" with a clearly marked box of human blood in his car, kisses a girl named Deza Malone, and ultimately discovers the real identity of Herman E. Calloway.

Reminiscent of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens in his storytelling approach, Christopher Paul Curtis also has a wicked sense of humor like the former. "The door banged open and Herman E. Calloway stood there huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf, only with his belly it looked like he'd already eaten the three little pigs," Curtis writes. Plus, Bud's self-help manual, entitled "Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself," includes some real doozies, like #29: "When You Wake Up and Don't Know for Sure Where You're At and There's a Bunch of People Standing Around You, It's Best to Pretend You're Still Asleep Until You Can Figure Out What's Going On and What You Should Do."

Winner of both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award. For further reading, check out a contemporary tale from Curtis, 2004's Bucking the Sarge.

ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET by Judy Blume (1970)

Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster; 149 pages; realistic fiction; ages 9-14; ISBN: 0-689-84158-2.

The suburb of Farbrook, New Jersey, is ex-New Yorker Margaret Simon's new home as she enters sixth grade. She quickly becomes friends with Gretchen, Janie, and Nancy, who invite her into a secret club for girls only; they create Boy Books, listing who they like the most (Philip Leroy is always number one), but mostly they talk about exercises to increase their "bust" and promise to tell each other when they get their periods. Margaret also talks to God about anything and everything, but because her father is Jewish and her mother is Christian, they haven't pressured her to choose between the two. The same can't be said for her overbearing Christian grandparents, but at least Margaret's Jewish grandmother isn't the kind to make her choose sides.

In a way Judy Blume picks up where she left off with her previous novel, Iggie's House, expanding her scope in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret to incorporate preteen girls' concerns and curiosity about their changing bodies as well as issues of religious faith and tolerance. Blume switches from the third-person narration of Iggie's House to first-person narration in this book, causing the reader to feel Margaret's frustration right alongside her as she questions her body, her beliefs, and everything in between. I especially like how Blume portrays grandparents in her books: Margaret's Jewish grandmother treats her like a person, not a child, similar to the grandmother of Katherine, the protagonist in Blume's 1975 novel Forever.... (Please wait a few years before you tackle that book, tween readers. Having said that, I'm completely positive you won't try to find out why you should wait.)

For further reading, don't read Forever! But do check out It's Not the End of the World, Blume's 1972 novel about a girl whose parents don't have the same loving bond as Margaret's.