Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Are you busy like you can't believe, too?


I silently cheered when I spotted Lucy Rose: Busy Like You Can’t Believe on the shelf recently. I’d been waiting for a time to read it, but so many of you were checking it out that I never got a chance to grab it! I finally got a chance to read it recently, and I loved it just as much as Lucy Rose: Here’s the Thing About Me and Lucy Rose: Big on Plans.

Have you met Lucy Rose? Cute is a word that I try to avoid when reviewing books, but it’s unavoidable this time. Lucy Rose is a very cute fourth grader. Now, when a cute fourth grader is the narrator of your book, you run the risk of it turning annoyingly precocious. Thankfully, DC-based author Katy Kelly has resisted this for three books running, and I am confident she will resist further.

Lucy Rose is indeed busy like you can’t believe. In between visiting Madam and Pop, trading palindromes with her father in Michigan, playing with best friend Jonique, auditioning for the school musical, and working on schoolwork, she is definitely a busy bee. The Lucy Rose books are written in diary form, which allows Lucy Rose to confide her feelings about the possibility of Jonique moving to another state, dealing with being teased by a mean girl, and the prospect of her mother dating. Basically, situations that many kids can understand.

This book, to use one of Lucy Rose’s favorite words, is fabulinity (something that is fabulous for infinity). Lucy Rose’s busy, busy life is told with great love and humor. The Lucy Rose books are great for kids who are dipping their toes into the great big pool of chapter books.

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