1. The Secret Book Club: I think I first read the Main Street series around the same time as The Mother-Daughter Book Club and thus I was very interested in book clubs. It sounded like so much fun to discuss major themes and plots with your friends as you read the same book together. Martin makes it even more intriguing by having it started by a mysterious benefactor. Plus it covers several books that I would go on to read for middle school so I felt ahead of the curve.

2. Special Delivery: It’s a classic trope, a new baby! But it gets me every time as the Northrop family prepares for the arrival of Aunt Allie’s adopted baby. Additionally, Ruby gets some much-needed charcter develpment when her bratty cockiness costs her a solo in the children’s choir.

3. Keeping Secrets: I was always excited to read this one when I reread the series in one sitting because it features a new family in the Row House. One with its unqiue secret. While Willow Hamilton is friendly, she’s also shy. Same with her brother. They seem to live on edge of their mother whose quirks and made-up rules overtake every aspect of their lives. Martin builds up the intrigue delicately until it culminates in a late night trip from the police. While Mrs. Hamilton’s mental affliction is never specifically named, she does a sensitive job depicting what it is like for Willow to live with a mental-unbalanced parent and how it affects her life as well as the looming sense of something wrong that the other girls notice when they initially visit the Hamilton to welcome Willow.

4/5. Coming Apart/Staying Together: I can’t. I really really can’t separate these two. They are bookends to the end depicting the development and growth all the protagonists have undergone since the Northrops arrived in Camden Falls two years ago. No one is the same as they were, and that’s exactly what you want from a good book. They’ve all changed for the better though there’s clear growing pains between Flora and Ruby as their fight about Min’s crystal owl is just a cover for bigger feelings. Also Nikki and her family has changed and healed since the absence of her abusive father, and Olivia becomes more assertive and confident since being the shrimpy nerd who skipped several grades. These two books make a perfect full circle end for the series.

6. September Surprises: This book should be very relatable for its readers who are also entering middle school, expounding on the newfound independence Flora, Nikki and Olivia get to experience as sixth graders as well the pressures and bullying some of them experience as they begin to question where childhood ends and teenagerhood begins, are they too childish? Do they accept popular girl invitations if one of their own is rejected? Plus the clever way Olivia circumnavigates Melody cheating off her without inviting more of the mean girl’s wrath is well done.

7. Welcome to Camden Falls: From here on, the books start to go lower in the list based on how memorable they were. This one gets the seventh spot because it’s an admirable introuction, setting the small town tone that makes it so cozy and readable. Plus I admire how it introduces the cast, cements the friendship between the main four and serves as a marker for how far the girls will go.

Tis the Season: This was a cute Christmas one filled with the holiday cheer as what the kids did for the Sherman family was really sweet. But other than introducing Aunt Allie there’s not much thats’s too memorable here.
Best Friends: This was the first anniversary since the girls moved to Camden Falls and its also the town’s 350th anniversary! Each girl gets their chance to shine for the town activities from Ruby’s starring role to Oliva’s photos and Nikki’s drawings but Flora’s genological history is the one that was most interesting to read about as she details how her grandfather’s actions during the Great Depression affecting various members of the town and their ancestors. The book also has its mini-conflict in the form of Flora’s old bff, Annika clashing with her new friends and serves as the first marker of how much the girls have grown and come to consider Camden Falls home. But Staying Together did it better so this comes in 9th place.

10. Needle and Thread: This gets last place as I truly remember it the least. I had to actually look up the plot. It apparently seeded the beginning of Flora’s search through history and friendship with Mary Woosley that culminates in her project in Best Friends as well as further depicts the hard home life of the Sherman family under her alcoholic father. But mainly this one serves as filler for bigger plots to come.