Sweet Advice

Two recently published books share a common denominator: a young girl anonymously authors a local newspaper's advice column. The two books are quite different: Dear Sweet Pea is contemporary fiction for middle grade readers and The Downstairs Girl is historical fiction for young adults. Both are standouts.

Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy

Dear Sweet Pea, 
​I could use your advice...

Thirteen-year-old Patricia "Sweet Pea" DiMarco is experiencing some significant changes. Her parents have agreed to an amicable divorce and will live on the same street in similar houses to minimize their daughter's discomfort with this new family dynamic.
She is simultaneously negotiating a falling-out with her former best friend and the repercussions from thoughtlessness toward her new best friend. This girl is headed for a world of hurt.
Then there's her neighbor, the eccentric advice columnist Miss Flora Mae who leaves town and asks Sweet Pea to forward advice requests and then deliver the answers to the newspaper editor. Sweet Pea succumbs to temptation and reads letters addressed to Miss Flora Mae. She decides to dispense her own advice and sets up an elaborate scheme to impersonate Miss Flora Mae in print. Sometimes the plan works. Sometimes it doesn't. How she extricates herself from a situation of her own making, salvages damages friendships, and rebuilds trust makes for a humorous, heartwarming tale.

Snippets from the advice column are interspersed throughout the narrative and deal with topics important to tweens: building and repairing friendships, dealing with awkward situations, weathering and surviving change at home,

Dear Sweet Pea oozes with southern charm. There's so much to love here: A vulnerable young girl caught up in a messy predicament. Concerned and sometimes overprotective parents. The agony of clothing shopping when nothing fits. As a bonus, there is a fifteen-pound live cat named Cheese, a dead stuffed cat who goes by Bette Davis, and a whole lotta Aretha Franklin. It's as good as gravy. ​Thank you, Julie Murphy.

​Audiobook accessed via Overdrive.

​Pub date: October 1, 2019  Publisher: Balzer + Bray  ISBN: 978-0062473073

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

Dear Miss Sweetie, 
Hold your horses. What's next? Shall women and men be forced to exchange wardrobes - pants on her and petticoats on him? I think you need to rein in your brazen ideas.
Sincerely yours,
Mary Steeple

Stacey Lee addresses racism, worker's rights, immigration, and women's suffrage from a unique perspective: a Chinese girl living in Atlanta Georgia in the late 1800s.
​Seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan loses her job as a milliner and must return to the demeaning life of a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. She and immigrant Old Gin secretly live in a tunnel beneath a newspaper printer's shop. She faces discrimination on several fronts. She’s an orphan, female, and Chinese .

An intelligent and resourceful young woman, she is determined to protect Old Gin and rise above her current circumstances. She finds a way, pseudonymously penning a local newspaper's advice column "Dear Miss Sweetie." Many questions are of the mundane sort: unruly children, troubled marriages, making a hat fit properly. She doesn’t stop there. Under the cloak of anonymity, she speaks out forcefully on racial and gender inequality. Her column is a success and newspaper subscriptions skyrocket.

In time she discovers some of Atlanta's darkest secrets, including a shocking revelation about her own past. ​There is plenty of intrigue: Clandestine meetings in a graveyard. Confronting a despicable Atlanta criminal. Listening in on private conversations via a secret connecting tube.

Readers will discover several fascinating tidbits scattered through this first person narration: Elaborate Chinese knot work (Take a look at some gorgeous samples.) Horse racing in 19th century Atlanta and a female jockey.  A glimpse into a suffragette meeting.  (Love those snazzy sashes.)
​Heart-warming, pulse-pounding, eye-opening historical fiction. The Downstairs Girl is a captivating read.

​Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

​​Pub date: August 13, 2019  Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Reader  ISBN: 978-1524740955