Maddie in the Middle

Description

A contemporary and timely exploration of friendships between young girls and the pressures they're faced with in the modern world. Maddie Lee is in year six, and she feels ordinary and dull. Her best and oldest friend Katy is head counsellor and aiming at an academic scholarship. Maddie doesn't have anything that is hers, anything that is special. Enter a mysterious new girl, Samara. Samara is pretty, calm and before long is in the popular girls' group. Maddie wants more than anything else to become friends with her. But when she does finally engineer a friendship of sorts, Maddie realises that Samara has a secret. When Samara enlists Maddie to raise money to keep her family from being separated, Maddie finally feels important and needed. So when Samara asks her to go one step further and start stealing, Maddie makes a decision that will have consequences beyond her imagining.

Julia Lawrinson is an award-winning writer of books for children and young adults. She hails from Perth and, despite leaving school at fifteen, has a PhD in writing and a Bachelor of Laws with distinction. Julia has worked in a range of organisations, from the arts to parliament to health. She has presented at schools, workshops and conferences across Australia, and in Singapore, Indonesia and the USA, and loves meeting her audience and encouraging reading, learning and curiosity. Her books are about friendship, family and the occasional Jack Russell. She loves the ocean, reading, dog parks and the word serendipity.