First kisses have Stevie Reel and her older sister Alex on opposite sides of the male-interest spectrum, while youngest sister Joey cannot even imagine considering boys over her frogs. This latest Sister Club volume balances middle-school co-ed hilarity with values and pre-adolescent angst. When Alex, the family's star actress, unexpectedly loses the school's leading role of Juliet to Jayden "Fluffernutter" Pffeffer's mediocre acting skills, her plans to experience a first kiss with her newest love interest, Scott Towel as Romeo, are thwarted. Furious, Alex quits the play and launches a spy mission with her two sisters to keep an eye on things and prevent Scott's first acting kiss. In science class, Stevie's cloud experiment gets a bit stormy when Owen "Wire Rims" O'Malley, her science partner, attempts a first kiss, which ends in an embarrassingly wet and icy fiasco for Stevie. McDonald keeps readers laughing with all the antics while expertly folding in Shakespeare references and double entendres in her now-familiar combination of journal-style entries from Joey's perspective, play scenes outlining Alex's viewpoint and an overall narrative told in Stevie's glib voice. (Fiction. 9-12)

Gr 4–7—In this story about the Reel sisters, Stevie, 12, gives her perspective on the changing nature of boy-girl relationships at school, while Alex, 14, contributes screenplay story lines chronicling her quiet admiration for fellow thespian Scott Howell. Joey, 10, adds lists and doodles to illustrate her disgust for her sisters' new attitudes toward kissing a boy. Cloudy uses weather, frogs, and Romeo and Juliet as the backdrop to a story focused on the sweeter side of sisterhood. Dialogue and situations will ring true for both new readers and fans.—Colleen S. Banick, Tomlinson Middle School, Fairfield, CT