Flashcards of My Life
By Charise Mericle Harper
Little, Brown, $15.99
240 pages
ISBN 0316756210

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REVIEW BY TRACY MARCHINI

Flashcards are usually reserved for homework assignments and recipe boxes, but when 12-year-old Emily receives a pack of flashcards, she has something entirely different in mind.

In Flashcards of My Life, we watch as Emily fills the flashcards with her dreams, embarrassments, likes and dislikes. She chronicles friends who don't get along and her crush on Andrew Wright. The flashcards begin filling up faster than Emily expected, but she still hasn't told her best friend about kissing "XXX," as he's known on the cards. Emily begins to wonder, do best friends have to tell each other everything?

Combining imaginative art and clever text, Charise Mericle Harper precisely captures the feelings of a "tween-age" girl. Emily wishes she were taller, bustier and wittier and worries that she's not wearing the right clothes. By peeking at her flashcards, readers can share the thrills and anxieties of middle school right along with her.