Allie Finkle!

I'm featuring two Meg Cabot books today, part of the charming middle grade Allie Finkle series!

Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright



Stage Fright comes out strong, setting a very powerful and perfect tone to a great story. This series really is great for fans of Barbara Park's snarky Junie B. Jones. It's the same brand of humor, and fans who may have outgrown Junie and are looking for something new to read will definitely find the same type of honest outlook on the world from Allie. Cabot is really good at keeping up with current pop culture and putting in age appropriate references, which would make the books all the more appealing with her target audience. This book is not only adorable and kid-friendly, it also contains simple environmentally-friendly facts for them to learn and hopefully adapt in their own lives. We need more books telling our children how to be environmentally friendly in this day and age, so kudos to Cabot for blending it in with the plot so well! This book, like its predecessors and sequel, carries out fantastic characterization and is just as humorous, too! The ending's a little anticlimactic and predictable, and I do not think the title fits even slightly, but it's a cute read and I'm sure kids would really enjoy it.

Glitter Girls and the Great Fake-Out



Allie Finkle may just be written for kids, but the humor will be appealing to readers of all ages. There's great characterization done by Cabot, including older characters such as Missy and Allie's parents, that is perfect for attracting both young and old audiences looking for a laugh. Cabot is amazing at capturing all these diverse personalities of these crazy little characters. She portrays Allie and her family together so well, and having siblings, she was able to write the best scenes including realistic interactions between Allie and her brothers. The cool thing about these books is that even though they're part of a series, they can totally be read as stand-alones and make sense at the end. Allie's "rules" provide a great base of solid repetition to keep the younger readers solidly interested. I'm hoping we do get to see Courtney again in future Allie Finkle books; she makes a great addition to an already wonderful cast of characters. Overall, a completely cute read--loved it!

I got these books from...:the author

May I Bring a Friend?

May I Bring a Friend?
written by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
illustrated by Beni Montresor



May I Bring a Friend? is another fun sequential story for children to enjoy. This one is all about any child's favorite thing--animals! It combines aspects of a fairytale fantasy world with a regular child's world, sure to delight young children Kids will definitely relate to the young child and his menagerie of friends. They'll find it funny and learn their days of the week at the same time. I'm not really a fan of the illustrations at all. I know the book won a Caldecott, but the images are extremely dull and blurred, hard to make out what is even being depicted. Not all that great.

I got this book from...:Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The House in the Night

The House in the Night
written by Susan Marie Swanson
illustrated by Beth Krommes



In the vein of stories like Goodnight Moon and This is the House that Jack Built, The House in the Night is a calming sequential story for children to enjoy. This book serves as a perfect bedtime story, lulling children to sleep with its melodious, repetitive words. Preschoolers would love this simple book as a read-aloud, or a book with which to learn to read. Cute, short, and simple, sure to grab and keep a young child's attention! Just as the text carries with it simplicity, so do the illustrations. Everything is done in only two colors, black and gold, with various levels of shading to darken/lighten various areas. The golden areas really jump out at the reader, grabbing their attention immediately.

I got this book from...:Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein



This is a great book to memorialize both the Twin Towers as well as an amazing feat performed by Philippe Petit. Children will get to experience the thrill and wonder of what the towers embodied while reading and looking at the amazing pictures. It's a good way to bring up a really difficult emotional subject with younger children who may not fully comprehend what happened on 9/11 Even without that element, it's a fantastically inspiring story of one man and his adventurous nature. The illustrations are done dramatically to portray a sense of grandeur. Some of the pages expand outwards, adding further drama to the book. The colors are pretty subdued, but they all swirl together, creating a sense of tranquility.

I got this book from...:Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Higher Power of Lucky

The Higher Power of Lucky
written by Susan Patron,
illustrated by Mike Phelan



The Higher Power of Lucky is a charming small-town story about a girl named Lucky looking for a "higher power" as her guidance in life. It is a book that emphasizes the love of a caregiver and the doubt that comes with it. The narration is flowery, filled with insightful thoughts that can only come from a snarky ten-year-old girl. While often unrealistically written, there are moments where you just shake your head, knowing that that one particular thought could only come from a child. There are many non-essential elements written into the story, such as the whole reason this book has been banned in many places. Many of the situations and subject matters feel horribly overdone, as if hundreds of authors have already written about them. Fans of Beverly Cleary's Ramona series will love this down-to-earth book, and will probably want to check out its sequel, Lucky Breaks. There are small sketch-like illustrations throughout the book. They don't really add much to the text, and the book could have done without them.

I got this book from...:Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Three Pigs

The Three Pigs
written and illustrated by David Wiesner



David Wiesner's The Three Pigs is a hilariousu take on a traditional fairy tale. With simple writing and interactive (to say the least) illustrations, a child will easily be drawn into the story. It requires a familiarity for the traditional story, and should probably be read in conjunction with that tale, but both kids and adults will go crazy for this new adaptation. It's dialogue centric and kid-friendly. Children may be reluctant to pick this one up, thinking it's just a retelling of the traditional story, so it's important to encourage them to read it, letting them know there's a different story ahead for them. This is a fantastic book for children to really get to sit down with the story alone and have time to pay really close attention to and examine the illustrations, as they provide half the story that is untold in the dialogue. The variety found in the various styles of illustration are integral to the story, which is why I would not suggest this as a read-aloud, as those don't typically allow for great examinations of the images.

I got this book from...:Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
written by Julie Andrews Edwards



This is such a classic children's fantasy book! I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't get to read it as a kid, but I am glad that I found it later on. It seems like it would make a really great read-aloud to a group of students. As often seen in children's fiction, a lot of it is really convenient, parts of it are really predictable, but it all makes for a great story, and there are some great suspenseful bits along the way. There are a lot of smaller conflicts that quickly get resolved, under the umbrella conflict of finding the Whangdoodle, and then the greatest conflict of all that isn't revealed until near the end. A really cool part of this book is its exposition to vocabulary through the Professor's narration. I'm really glad we didn't get the cop out "it was all a figment of their imaginations/a dream" ending. I'm also really glad that in the end, it's a story about the Professor and the realization of his dream, rather than a focus on the kids, although they are still a big part of the story. There are parts of the book near the ending that do get a little preachy, but it's still a fantastic fantasy read for kids and their parents/teachers.

I got this book from...:Bookmooch