Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Moving Day by Meg Cabot

Moving Day by Meg Cabot

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


In order to create some sense in her life, 9-year-old Allie Finkle decides to create a list of rules to live by, including such rules as: ‘Don’t stick a spatula down your best friend’s throat’, ‘Never eat anything red’, and ‘You can’t take your rocks with you.’



This list is even more helpful to Allie when she finds out that her family is moving to a huge, old house across town. She doesn’t want to move!...even though a Dairy Queen is right around the corner, she’ll be allowed to get a new pet kitten, the girl next door is her own age and awesome (unlike her current best friend that she doesn’t like very much and who is known to cry over everything), and her new teacher is very nice. Allie thinks this new house is haunted and has no desire to move in there, despite all of the cool things that promise to be a part of that new life. She’s going to do everything in her power to sabotage the sale of her current house using her new book of rules!



This is a great book and I liked Allie right away. She’s funny, honest, and has a good heart. Moving Day is the first book in this series; read more about Allie in The New Girl . Those who enjoyed this book might also enjoy the Just Grace series (Harper) or the Clarice Bean novels (Child).





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The Floods: Good Neighbors by Colin Thompson

The Floods #1 by Colin Thompson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Flood family isn’t what you’d call totally normal—Nerlin and Mordonna, the parents, are a wizard and a witch, respectively; Valla, the oldest of the seven children, works at a blood bank (and brings his work home with him!); Satanella was once a cute little girl, but after a terrible magic accident involving a shrimp and a faulty wand, she turned into small dog; Merlinmary is completely covered in hair, so nobody knows if it’s a boy or a girl; Winchflat is the family genius—except that he looks like he’s already dead; the twins Morbid and Silent only speak to each other telepathically; and Betty, the youngest, is the only “normal-looking” child in the family—but she still possesses magical powers. The Flood family thinks that everything in their lives is perfect—except for their next door neighbors, the Dents.

The Dents are as obnoxious as can be! Their lawn is littered with garbage and old cars, their dog Rambo attacks anyone who comes near the house, the television stays on at full volume all day and night, the family communicates with one another by yelling, and the children are bullies. It comes to a point where the Floods decide that they aren’t going to stand for this anymore and take measures to change the Dent family’s ways.

This story is hilarious! The Flood family brings to mind those in The Addams Family and The Munsters—spooky and weird, but in a funny way. The author’s tone is humorous throughout the entire book, which is sure to make readers snicker. Continue reading about the Flood family in the rest of The Floods series!



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The Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech

The Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This story is told from the point of view of an angel who is hundreds of years old and living quite peacefully in a tower of a house in the Alps until a family moves in.  Zola and her father are Americans who move to Switzerland to get a fresh start; her father plans to open a boarding school.  The angel isn’t used to people being able to see it, so it’s startled when Zola addresses it when she enters the tower.

The angel and Zola become wary friends; Zola often asks it questions it doesn’t know the answer to (are you a boy angel or a girl angel?;  where are your wings?; etc.).  As time passes, Zola and the angel get more used to each other.  Zola begins asking the angel to help her with things; most importantly, Zola has discovered a group of orphans living in an old shed.  The angel wonders what it can do to help; it seems uncertain of its role as an angel.  What it can do, however, is send a sort of feeling/image into the heads of the local adults that will make them want to help the children and, alternatively, it can send feelings/images into the heads of the orphan children that will make them feel better.   Will this be enough to save these children?

This is a gentle story that readers will be sure to remember.  The angel is so innocent; it doesn’t even know how to properly pronounce certain words although it’s been around so long.  Zola can be bossy, but her heart is in the right place.  Readers who enjoyed this might also enjoy Beyond the Station Lies the Sea (Richter).

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The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Soon after starting at a new school, Wanda becomes the focus of a daily taunting by the other girls.  Wanda wears the same—albeit clean and pressed—blue dress to school every day and, on top of that, the kids think that she has a strange last name: “Petronski.”  On the way to school one day, Wanda feels less shy than normal and whispers to Peggy, the prettiest and most popular girl in class, that she has one hundred dresses at home in her closet.  Clearly, she’s not telling the truth, but Peggy doesn’t let the subject drop; instead, she asks Wanda every single day thereafter how many dresses she has…and Wanda always answers the same way.  Following her answer, the girls laugh and then  ignore her.

Peggy’s best friend Maddie doesn’t like how the girls follow Peggy’s lead and make fun of Wanda.  Maddie knows that she should say something to Peggy about stopping the teasing, but Maddie is afraid that Peggy will start making fun of her instead!

When Wanda and her family suddenly move away, Maddie feels awful that she never had a chance to apologize to her and must deal with her feelings of guilt and shame over her behavior.

This is a quick read that will leave the reader thinking long after the story ends.  It takes place in the 1940s, although there is no mention of the war.  For readers seeking a sweet story about friendship and acceptance, recommend this.

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