Review: Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer by Ali Maeir

Source: Received from author in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Erie Island Media, LLC
Series: Mom Made Us
Edition: e-copy, 208 Page
Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary
Purchase: Amazon/ Barnes & Noble / Book Depository*
*I receive a small monetary kickback from Amazon purchases
Rating: 4/5

A sister and brother, forced to write in the summer, and share ONE journal? Ugh.

This is exactly what happens to 10-year-old twins Maggie and Max Pruitt. When Mom comes up with a plan for them to keep a summer journal, Maggie and Max can’t believe it. Worse yet, they have to share!

Through their writing, Maggie and Max find out they have very different (and hilarious) views about growing up, family and life – a conclusion they only discovered because, as Max and Maggie say, “Mom Made Us Write This.”

Positive, creative and fun for classrooms and families! -Mrs. Jane Jagielo, 4th Grade Teacher

Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer is a fun journal style book that focuses on a brother and sister who happened to be twins. When Maggie and Max keep fighting  their mother decides to give them summer homework in the form of a journal. They have to pick 10 topics and then they both have to write how they feel about that topic, and through the course of the summer they learn how to appreciate each other.

I love journal books like this, probably because I never wrote in a journal as a kid. It’s always fun to read a story and then have the main characters include pictures and scribbles, it really brings out the character’s depth and helps you connect with them more. Maggie and Max have great personalities that will definitely hit home with a lot of kids their age (10). Maggie is a great example of a strong girl, who enjoys drawing and a ton of ice cream. She’s got a great head on her shoulders, though sometimes she’s prone to over-reacting. Max is a smart kid with a knack for building shotting devices out of paperclips and rubber bands and loves sports, but as his sister puts it he’s sort of ‘clueless’ when it comes ot other people’s feelings.

I loved seeing how Max and Maggie grew over the course of the 10 entries. At first they are argumentative, even in written form, with a lot of blame being tossed about and a lot of frustration but as they story progresses you begin to see how they comes to understand each other a bit better and start seeing how much they actually have in common.

This is definitely a great book for kids in late elementary school and early middle school, and it’s even better if they have siblings to read it with them.