Pemberley - it sounds like your dd's new school genuinely cares about meeting her where she's at intellectually - that's wonderful!
Re the literature series, the one thing I'd do for sure is talk to the teacher and ask her your questions. I'm not familiar with that series at all, but having two kids in middle school I can tell you what my potential concerns would be:
1) Although I can't think of any books that my children have been assigned to read that have either sex or drugs in them, they have read and discussed (in class) books that have very deeply emotional topics - holocaust, abuse, poverty.
2) The level of classroom discussion - this is one area where I see a potentially large gap in where an 8 year old might be developmentally and where a typical middle school child is.
Unless the teacher is new to the school or grade level, he/she will have a background understanding of what's in the books and how the discussions will go in class (or if they will be discussed at all).
How's everything going so far? I hope your dd is happy this year!
Best wishes,
polarbear
