Born to Wear the Badge: Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol by Jim Krieg

Just then the custodian walked by, rolling that oversize garbage can. I tossed the trumpet into his pail.

"Look like I'm ready to commit?"

The captain looked me over. If he was impressed, he wasn't going to show it. "Name and grade?"

"Carver," I said. "Seventh."

"Experience?"

"Six years," I told him, "four on the street, two inside."

That nearly got a reaction out of him. Junior crossing guards were relatively easy to come by. But an experienced Hallway Patrolman, that was something different.

"Where?" he asked, still not impressed.

"Saint Finbar's," I told him.

"Carver, Griffin Carver?" he asked, suddenly interested. "The Griff Carver?" "Dang," he said, "everybody's heard of you. Maple and Third. They still talk about you at Junior Police Camp."

Burned out after being on the force since first grade, Griff Carver has promised his Old Lady he's out of law enforcement, going to become a jolly trumpet-playing bandie at his new school, Rampart Middle. But when he sees that card table with the hastily printed SAFETY PATROL sign, sees the usual cop types hunched together around Capt. Delane, he feels again the pull of that plastic badge. The Brotherhood of Officers. The Call to Duty.

Carver is assigned to second-period hall patrol with Tommy Rodriguez, a supernaturally cheerful and devoted Boy Scout with every badge known to Scoutdom, and as he makes his first round on the beat, he sees all the usual types, the Student Govies, headed by the slick, teeth-whitened Marcus Volger, perennial class president, the Jocks, the Straight As, the Gamers, the Hair Girls, the Self-Imposed Outcasts, even the Ace Girl Reporter, Verity King, already news-hounding for the Rampart Middle Liberty Bell. And then Griff collars his first perp, a runner named Dover Belton, who instantly sets off the buzzer on his well-honed cop radar:

"You always carry your backpack to the boys' room?" I asked.

Belton smiled weakly and shrugged.

"What do you make of his hall pass, Rodriguez?"

There it was. I saw a tiny droplet of sweat drip out of Helton's hairline. Bingo.

"It's a fake," I said.

Griff Carver soon learns that underneath the squeaky clean halls of Rampart Middle, there's a Dark Side, a protection racket fueled with fake hall passes manufactured in the Wood Shop, fronted by Marcus Volger and abetted by his band of cupcake-pushing girl groupies and eighth grade glandular goons, a syndicate which even controls the Coke machines right under the nose of the clueless Principal Sprangue. Tommy, too, despite his initial buy-in of Volger's squeaky-clean persona, begins to see the sleazy underside of school when Volger's goombahs treat him to a swirly in the latrine to keep him quiet.

Carver is afraid to report what he knows to Patrol Chief Delane, suspicious that he, too, might be on the take from Volger. His only allies, it seems, are the talkative Tommy, the scoops-hungry Verity, and the shadowy janitor who sees all and becomes Griff's informer. But a good cop does his duty, and Griff drafts Tommy to join him in a take-down of the hall pass forgers in action at their lathe. Crawling through the HVAC shafts one night while the parents meet in the auditorium, the two lawmen make it to the air vent above the woodworking shop and find all the usual suspects assembled, ripe for arrest--if the two good cops can handle Volger's entire gang.

Jim Krieg's first novel, Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol (Razor Bill/Penguin Group, 2010) is a smart and witty spoof of the hoary police procedural novel and TV cop show, with an unlikely hero with a jaundiced but sharp eye for the middle school scene ("Politicians. Kids looking to score a few points on their magnate high school application.") Krieg deftly tells his tale through a series of incident reports and debriefings, with plenty of humor and action to keep the pages turning all the way.

"A hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich. Usually baloney," he humbly and gruffly remarks about his reputation as a junior crime fighter, but however unlikely, Griff Carver is a savvy hero kids will go for. Devotees of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series will recognize the usual middle school suspects here, and fans of Adam Canfield, ace middle school investigative reporter of The Slash, hero of Michael Winerip's Adam Canfield books, will likewise take Griff Carver, the boy behind the badge, into their hearts.

Sail On! United Tates of America by Paula Danziger

My name is Skate Tate. I'm eleven years old and I've just about finished my first day of sixth grade at Biddle Middle. Actually, my first day has just about finished me. Skate Tate of Biddle Middle. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss book but it's not...it's my life.

Sarah Kate Tate (alias Skate) hates to leave her pleasant life at Maurice Sendak Elementary behind. After all, she could walk home with Susie, her cousin and best friend, in five minutes and 42 seconds, and the two inseparable friends could spend every afternoon playing, scrapbooking, and doing homework together.

But now all that is past. Entering middle school means riding a bus an hour each way, dealing with a locker that won't open, and watching Susie find a new best friend the first day of school. Middle school means having an English teacher, Mrs. Lipschutz, who seems all right and a science teacher, Mr. Booth, who has hair growing out of his ears. Middle school means sitting on the bus next to three boys, whose actual names are Hughie, Louie, and Duey, who quack instead of talking, and, worst of all, it means going home to spend her afternoons alone.

Paula Danziger's talent for catching the voice and cartwheeling emotions of early adolescence is seen full blown in this funny and poignant novel which documents the first of what will be many changes in the life of Skate Tate. Observant and resilient, she makes a place for herself in her new middle school world by earning a position as cartoonist and art editor for her school newspaper and begins to make a friend of her co-artist Garth Garrison. Lucky Skate, she has a strong family to support her as she moves forward--parents with a sense of humor, and a sister, improbably named Emma Tate ("what were my parents thinking?") a sometimes pest who shares her love for the "Happy Scrappys," the friends who meet to work on their projects every Saturday. Best of all is her globe-trotting Great Uncle Mort (called GUM by the family) who brings back wonderful, just right gifts and encourages Skate to "expand your horizons, not to be afraid, not to be stuck in one place."

Skate is perplexed when GUM gives her his Christmas presents in October and devastated when he dies of a heart attack soon after. Typically, Mort leaves behind a personal video and a behest in his will which will fund family trips to places he had wished to take them. The "United Tates," as they name themselves, buy a new van (christened "Vincent Van Go") and make a trip to the first site on GUM's list, Plymouth Rock and Plimouth Plantation. As they visit the Pilgrim sites that Uncle Mort chose for her to see, Skate suddenly understands what her favorite uncle wanted her to know--that life is indeed a series of many settings forth and many landings.

United Tates of America includes a bonus appendix, Skate's scrapbook pages documenting her first semester at Biddle Middle School, designed by Paula Danziger, herself an ardent scrapbooker.

Danziger's other novels of early adolescence include her classic The Cat Ate my Gymsuit and its sequel There's a Bat in Bunk Five, The Divorce Express, Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?, and the first in her Matthew Martin series, Everyone Else's Parents Said Yes.

Additionally, in a collaboration made in literary heaven, there are the two wonderful books, P. S.: Longer Letter Later and Snail Mail No More co-written with Ann M. Martin. The story of two best friends, separated by a family move at the beginning of middle school, consists of a series of letters which become emails in the second book, in which Ann M. Martin writes in the voice of Elizabeth, thoughtful and reserved, and Danziger writes in the voice of Starr, an adventurous and flamboyant character always ready to jump into new experiences.

Back to School: How I Survived Middle School: Can You Get a F in Lunch? by Nancy Krulik

Jenny thinks she's ready for middle school: she's wearing her coolest sleepover camp tee; she's read the school handbook cover to cover three times; and her best friend Addie will be there for her every step of the way.

But when she happily meets Addie at their lockers, it's like Jenny just woke up on another planet. Addie has a whole new group of swim team friends from the hometown day camp and a ninth-grade boyfriend to walk her to class. Jenny realizes that her clothes are all wrong, her sack lunch is dorky, and she has absolutely no one to eat lunch with. Even memorizing the school handbook doesn't keep the eighth graders from sending her on a wild goose chase to the cafeteria.

As Addie continues to ignore her for her new Pop Club friends, Jenny is led to make up a new handbook for middle school.

RULE #1: A BIG GREEN T-SHIRT WITH A LIZARD ON THE FRONT IS NOT MATURE.

RULE #2: NO BROWN BAG LUNCHES.

RULE #3: ANYONE WHO IS ANYONE GOES TO THE CAFETERIA GIRLS' ROOM AFTER LUNCH.

RULE #4: PASSING NOTES IS COOL.

RULE #5: NEVER FEEL TOO GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF: SOMEONE WILL MAKE IT THEIR BUSINESS TO KNOCK YOU DOWN AGAIN.

Little by little, Jenny makes a whole new group of "non-Pop" friends and finds out that they have more fun than the social leaders because they're free to ignore the slavish rules and dress code of the Pops. When Jenny gets the courage to confront the cruel Pops leader publicly and incidentally douses Addie with purple yogurt, she finds herself the hero of the school. Sentenced to a detention working at the refreshment table at the fall dance, Jenny finds that everyone wants to talk to her, which makes Addie a bit jealous, a little lonely, and a lot apologetic. Meanwhile Jenny looks forward to having her new friends over to her house to keep her company while she's grounded.

Other books in this series are I Heard a Rumor (How I Survived Middle School) and
Madame President (How I Survived Middle School).

For real-life advice on preparation for middle school that doesn't involve purple yogurt, here are three timely and tested guides: A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School, Keeping Cool in Middle School, and The Middle School Survival Guide.