And just in time, along comes Miss Lucy B. Parker.

Charming, flawed, sympathetic main character? Check. Lighthearted writing that nevertheless has some substance behind it? Check. Squeaky clean without feeling babyish? Check. Available in paperback? Check.

Lucy B. Parker sends emails to tv host Dr. Maude (presumably a Dr. Phil-esque advice giver) about the trials and travails of her sixth grade life, and the emails are scattered throughout the tale of same. As if it wasn’t hard enough starting sixth grade without her two BFFs, who friend-dumped her – on the phone – from the mall – right before school started! – her mother is now dating the father of the most famous young actress/singer on the planet (think Miley Cyrus early in the Hannah Montana years). Lucy’s been going through one embarrassing time after another and now she’s facing life as the far less attractive, appealing and talented stepsister of the most famous girl on the planet. How much worse can her life get?

This novel is charming as all get out and a complete no-brainer handsell. I’m predicting it will be a summer bestseller for me.  Over the last couple of years I have very much enjoyed selling Robin Palmer’s fairy-tale based contemporary YA novels, which I have happily been selling to tweens due to their lack of very older content. Now it’s lovely to see Ms. Palmer turning her hand to novels truly aimed at the tween market, which just seems to be exploding. I love having books that I can hand to anyone without a second thought – reader, mom, grandmother, aunt, birthday gift giver. I love having paperback original series. I love tweeniness.

I can’t wait for Lucy’s next adventure!

(Well, librarians and other teachers listen up too.)

Here’s that sweet little book that comes along once or twice a year and works its way into the hearts of its readers. That book that spreads itself out like the coziest of handknit blankets and wraps itself around you while you read it. That book that you open in front of a roomful of girls (or in front of your daughter, or granddaughter, or the little girl you babysit) and when you are done with the chapter you are reading, they beg you to read just a little more.

Sophie (11), Anna (9) and Trudie (7) live with their parents in an apartment on the Lower East Side in New York City. They live above the family business, Breittlemann’s Doll Repair. Bisque and china dolls are very expensive, so the girls don’t have any of their own, but they are allowed to play with the dolls that are waiting to be repaired by their papa. There are three dolls that have been waiting longer than most, unclaimed, and the girls have come to think of the dolls as “theirs.”

Anna is our narrator, and her story is tinged with the unique frustrations and tribulations of the middle child:

I listen to their footsteps as they go, but I don’t follow them right away. I want to be alone down here for a little bit. Sometimes it’s hard being a middle sister, and I just need to be by myself. Sophie is smart and pretty and good at so many things; Trudie (her real name is Gertrude, though we never call her that) is little and cute and cries to get her way. I’m just the one sort of stuffed in between–at nine I’m not old enough to do some things, like light the kitchen stove, but too old to do others, like snuggle in Mama and Papa’s bed on a cold morning.

Despite her feelings, though, and the family’s relative poverty, theirs is a happy life. It is a loving family, and the girls love what their parents do, so they are happy to chip in with shop chores. School is also a source of happiness, as is their friendly Jewish neighborhood.  And, of course, the time they are allotted to play with “their” special dolls is treasured. Anna often tells her private troubles to Bernadette Louise (the name she has given to “her” doll). The year passes, and is told in charming fashion.

On August 2nd, however, everything changes: Germany declares war on Russia. Although the war has not yet touched the United States, it begins to immediately affect Anna’s family: the parts that Papa uses to fix the dolls come from Germany. Because Germany has declared war on Russia, the US has stopped trading with them. No more doll parts. No doll parts, no work for the doll repair shop.

The family comes up with some creative ways to survive the war, and Anna and her sisters grow through the experience. “Their” special dolls play an important part in both their growth and the story, as McDonough brings us beautifully to a satisfying and hopeful ending.

The reader gets a very nice portrayal of the 1930’s Lower East Side and the experience of being Jewish at that time, in that neighborhood. It’s not as big a part of the story  as it is in ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY, but it’s done in a very matter of fact way that I always appreciate. There’s a lovely family relationship here, and the sibling rivalries, troubles and joys ring true. Most of all, we see Anna learn to be resourceful in some completely normal ways, which is refreshing. She’s not super gifted – she’s not a prodigy – but she’s clever and creative in a way that comes from love for her family and a true desire to contribute in a difficult time. She’s an excellent example for children without being obnoxious about it.

I think this book will have a long life.

(I also think it will sell better in paperback – this is one of those books that I wish had simultaneous hard and softcover print runs. Especially in this economy, it can be hard to get parents to spring for a $14.99 hardcover that’s 116 pages long.)

Junebug is almost thirteen, and she spends every summer at the Blue Moon Playhouse, a summer stock theatre that her parents own. Her dad is the director (and sometimes the star), her mother designs costumes, and her sister is stepping into her first major role. And Junebug? She’s been just about every sort of backstage worker there is, and is longing to tread the boards herself.

Even more than that, however, she’s longing for her family to return to normal. Her mother’s moved out of their house and back in her mother’s house, three miles away on the other side of the farm where Blue Moon sits. Her parents let them choose where they would spend the summer. Stella and Junebug, both theatre-mad, chose to stay at the Playhouse, while their brother, Beck, always more interested in farming than acting, went with their mother. Junebug’s father has cast himself in the leading role in every play and seems to be eyeing up one of the leading ladies. Stella’s moved into her role as a teenager fully and no longer seems interested in spending any time with her younger sister or doing her share of the chores they are supposed to split.

And to top it all off, Junebug’s father agreed to take on an intern – a weird boy named Trace with a stutter – and has given Junebug the task of “showing him the ropes.” He seems to be an endless resource of theatrical knowledge, which Junebug considers mostly useless and annoying, and privately nicknames him Thespis. Her father makes things even worse when he suggests giving Junebug’s properties job to Trace for one of the plays, leaving Junebug with…nothing. Her mother’s left, her father hardly talks to her, her sister ignores her, her brother’s elsewhere, the Playhouse has smaller audiences than ever, and the new intern takes over the last part of her summer that was going well. Junebug’s familiar, comfortable world seems to be collapsing, and she doesn’t like it one bit.

It will take a lot of changes for Junebug to begin to recognize her world again.

Henson navigates those changes, Junebug’s varying moods, and the dynamics of a family in trouble deftly. The book is written partially in a clever manner that never feels contrived. Several times in each chapter, passages like this appear:

HERE’S HOW I SEE IT:

The curtain falls for the night on my huge Broadway hit. Flowers rain down on my head. Friends gather in my dressing room after the show to congratulate me. Fans wait for me outside the stage door.

“Ms. Cantrell, you were magnificent tonight!”

“Ms. Cantrell, you are an inspiration!”

I try to sign as many autographs as possible before my agent hurries me to my waiting car.

“Ms. Cantrell must rest now,” she says to the crowd. “You must understand. The play is so very demanding.”

My driver takes me home to my hip downtown loft. There are flowers everywhere, from my countless admirers. There are close friends everywhere – actors, directors, artists – and we sit up all night long, talking about life and art and theater.

HERE’S HOW IT IS:

The house is dark and empty. And so I go through every room.

“Lights up!” I command in a Coleman voice, flipping switches, illuminating every dark space.

I hate the dark.

In the kitchen I search the fridge and cabinets, hungry as any MARINER alone on a storm-tossed sea, but (alas, alack) the shelves are bare, except for some old milk and moldy cheese and an inch of peanut butter.

When I began reading, I feared that this stylistic choice might quickly get on my nerves. I was relieved to find out it was just the opposite. Junebug is unhappy for a lot of this book, and also does a decent job of making some of the people around her unhappy. The book could have been pretty depressing. However, she has a real flair for the dramatic (a combination of her background, of course, and of being almost thirteen) so her literary histrionics often lighten the mood considerably.

Henson also has Junebug introduce each new character in a fun, theatrical way:

RAY MONDELLO, character actor; round and jolly; a “hail-fellow-well-met” (that’s Shakespeare for “cool dude”).

COLEMAN, one name only; a light in the dark, Dad calls her, because she was named for a lamp, but also because she’s like a lighthouse on a stormy sea; as Stage Manager, she is the one who keeps everything running smoothly during the show.

I’m a big fan of books set in the theatre. I was in the majority of the school shows from 5th grade on, and during the summer between my junior and senior years, a new summer theatre for young people started up. I attended for two years before becoming first an assistant director and then a director, and when the theatre became year-round, I performed many, many roles there, both onstage and off. Henson gets the theatre stuff dead-on right, which is no surprise – she spent a great many of her childhood summers at a summer stock theatre. You definitely get a full picture of what the experience is like, in a very accessible way.

Highly recommended.

Order the book from an independent bookstore!

I was sent some review copies of OWLY graphic novels, and I am only too happy to sing their praises here. I can’t believe I never have before. See, Owly (and his best friend, Wormy) and I are old friends now. I have an Owly shirt. I have a stuffed Owly (with stuffed Wormy on his head). And, thanks to the review copies, I now know there are more books than the two I had, and got to read them as well as revisit the first couple.

OWLY is a wordless graphic novel series that I would shelve in my elementary books if I had to be pinned down on a place, but obviously soft hearts of all ages will love it if I am sitting here telling you that I do (and I am closer to 40 than I’d like to discuss). It’s the story of Owly, a little owl, and his best friend Wormy, and their adventures in their forest home.  (I’m going to completely spoil the first novella for you, so you can see what sort of stories they are, but this isn’t HARRY POTTER – knowing the plot isn’t going to ruin your enjoyment.)

When we first meet Owly in THE WAY HOME, he is looking for a friend. He startles some birds into spilling their bowl of seeds and flying away, and with a sigh, he refills the bowl for them. When they don’t return, he goes to investigate a sound he hears. Finding some fireflies in a jar, he releases them, but they too fly away. Then a hard rainstorm begins, and he finds a little worm clinging to some grass in the middle of a puddle, unable to swim to safety. Owly takes him home, tucks him into bed, and nurses him back to health.

When Wormy (for it is he) wakes up, he is first afraid of Owly, but quickly taken in by the owl’s kindness. Owly wants Wormy to stay with him, but Wormy explains that he was separated from his family by the storm. Owly consults a map so he can take Wormy home. With the eventual help of the fireflies Owly set free early on, they find Wormy’s family. Owly wins them over despite their initial fear, and after sharing a hearty meal, sadly sets off for home alone. But soon he hears a familiar voice, and turns to see Wormy behind him, all of his possessions tied up in a sack on a stick. Wormy’s parents are waving goodbye, giving their son their blessing to strike out on his own. Owly helps Wormy up to sit on his head, and the friends (and now roommates) head for home together.

Runton’s expressive art gives life to not only Owly and Wormy and their friends, but also to their thoughts and dialogue through the use of clever rebus-like thought and dialogue bubbles. If Owly thinks Wormy would be happy if he went outside, for instance, you’ll get one bubble on one side of Owly’s head with a picture of an open door, an arrow pointing outside, and an exclamation point; on the other side of his head will be a bubble containing a picture of a happy little sun, an equal sign, and a picture of Wormy with a big smile on his face.  The only words that appear in these novels are sound words (like SPLASH if someone steps in a puddle) and words on anything that Owly & Co. might be reading, like books or letters.

You don’t need words to follow the stories, and you don’t need words to fall in love with the characters. Owly is, for lack of a better description, darn cute. I mean, really, really darn cute. Wormy might be even cuter. The birds are cute. The bunnies are cute. It’s ALL cute, but not in a rot your teeth kind of way. Owly is a true friend to those he knows – loyal and loving, encouraging and warm. He’s the kind of character you want your kids to fall in love with. Along the way, you’ll fall in love with him too.

I can’t wait to curl up with Molly and an Owly book, piecing the story together by looking at this art that I love, listening to her tell me what Owly and Wormy are doing next. Even though I’ll have figured it out first, it’ll be even sweeter sharing it with her. Share Owly with someone you love, or with anyone who could use a simple, lovely friendship series.

Order OWLY from an independent bookstore! (Link goes to book 1.)

(Psst: MOVIE SHOES next, okay? Please?)

This willy-nilly wander through the stacks doesn’t always pay off – one of the other books I picked up that day is the worst thing I’ve read in at least two years.  But oh my stars, this book was wonderful.  My favourite things in a young adult book (or kids book, for that matter) are realistically portrayed friendships, witty banter, and believable characters, which is why Feeling Sorry for Celia is my favourite young adult book of all time and very close to the top of my favourite book of all time.  (I have a hard time committing to a single favourite book so I have several elaborate divisions by genre in my head.)  My Most Excellent Year is the closest I’ve come to finding another book as pitch-perfect as Celia.  It shares an unusual format with Celia; the book is written in the style of a school assignment for the three main characters – Anthony, aka T.C., Alejandra, and Augie – who are reflecting on their titular most excellent year.  As a result, it’s full of letters, emails, instant message conversations, vignettes, and the scathing theatre reviews that Augie’s mother writes.

None of them are having what you would call uneventful years.  Alejandra is dealing with a new school and attempting to fend off the advances of T.C., who is immediately smitten with Alé.  T.C. is trying to impress Alé while also helping his father with his attempts at wooing T.C.’s guidance counsellor.  Augie’s overwhelming crush on Andy Wexler has led him to the conclusion that he is gay, to the surprise of nobody but himself, and he throws himself into the school talent show in order to distract himself from the startling discoveries he is making both about himself and Andy.

The reaction to Augie’s sexuality, or perhaps I should say the non-reaction, is one of the most appealing things about this book.  The revelation is only surprising to Augie himself; all the other characters in the book figure it out long before Augie, and as a result, his coming out is a complete non-event.  The subsequent relationship between Augie and Andy is handled no differently than the heterosexual relationships in the book, and although the realities of being a gay teenager are perhaps oversimplified, they are certainly not ignored.

Although the romantic relationships are a central theme to the story, they are not the only type of relationship that the book explores.  The idea of chosen family, rather than merely biological connections, is also a key element of the story, and Augie and T.C.’s declaration at the age of six that they are brothers is immediately accepted by Augie’s parents and T.C.’s father.  The role that Augie played in helping T.C. accept the death of his mother is reflected in the character of Hucky, a young deaf orphan whom T.C., and subsequently Augie and Alé, befriend.  Although this plot line does strain credulity at times, it is not so sweet as to be unpleasant.

Overall, despite a few moments that ring false and a couple of plot developments that seem to teeter on the edge of total unbelievability, the immensely likeable characters are mostly able to overcome it.  The conclusion veers into near fantasy but is so satisfying that I couldn’t bring myself to be bothered by it.  And I totally cried.  I am not ashamed to admit it.  I also laughed a lot and kicked my feet and squealed several times while reading this book, which I always take as a good sign.  This book will make you feel good, and if you’re in the mood for that kind of book, you’d be hard pressed to do better than this one.

Order it from an independent bookseller!

Lisa Greenwald! Hi! Hihihihi! Come on in. Welcome to the Club For Awesome Female Writers Writing For Tweens. Please stay in the club. Or if you leave for a little while to join Awesome Female Writers Writing For Teens, promise me that you’ll come back, okay? Because tweens need more books like this book.

We’ve already handsold our way through our initial stock of this book at Pudd’nHead, and are eagerly anticipating our next shipment. Actually, by “we” I mean Nikki, the owner, because I hadn’t read this book until last night so I haven’t sold any yet. Hopefully when I go in next we will have more so I can handsell it because now I need to share. Especially now that I know that it features a struggling independent business.

I hug you, MY LIFE IN PINK AND GREEN.

12 year old Lucy isn’t going to wait around for her family’s pharmacy to go out of business. So what if people seem more interested in shopping at all-in-one big box stores? So what if her grandma thinks her improvement ideas are “cute,” and her mom is more interested in saving the world than in saving their livelihood? With the urging of her best friend and the support of her sister (away at college), Lucy decides to take matters into her own hands and make the pharmacy a viable, modernized business.

She gets a lucky break when the high school homecoming queen comes into the pharmacy with hair gone tragically wrong on the day of the big game and dance, and the products that Lucy tells her to use actually fix her hair. The queen blabs all over town about how great Lucy is, and all of a sudden she is the go-to person for special occasion makeup and makeup lessons. And, of course, every person who gets their makeup done buys the products she uses! Can a complete turnaround of the pharmacy business be far behind?

Apparently, if her apathetic mother and stubborn grandma have anything to say about it. So Lucy pushes her ideas even further, seeking for a way to combine her mother’s love of saving the Earth with her grandma’s love of having a room over their heads to produce a solution they can all live with. What she discovers along the way: her own love of the Earth; a surprising amount of business savvy; how to make her voice heard within the confines of her own family; and a crush on a boy that’s been around practically her whole life. Lucy’s confidence and creativity just may save the day after all.

Lucy is awesome. She is a take-charge, hands-on girl who starts the book annoyed at having to “work” in the pharmacy but quickly turns around as she sees how important the business is to their family. The book shows how valuable local, independent businesses are without becoming preachy about it; Lucy truly does begin to offer services that you just don’t get in chain stores, and the community ends up getting involved in the store in some very valuable ways. I think this is a great lesson for tweens to get in any way, shape or form; having it wrapped up in a totally charming novel is possibly the best way of all.  I highly, highly recommend this book.

But…

Did you know I was going to say it? That I’m not in love with the cover? I’m not. I’m sorry, MY LIFE IN PINK AND GREEN, but I’d like you to have a bit of a different cover. That font has got to go. Please make that font go. Especially the part where it’s yellow and hard to read. Also, there’s just a lot going on here, with the face and the hands and the cucumbers with the recycle signs on them and the pink and the green and the yellow font. This cover makes sense, but it’s…not right, somehow. It might be trying to say too much. I like the spine (although same font problem here…please ditch this font for the paperback) but the cover’s just too busy or something. It’s not terrible – except for the font, did I mention that? – but something about it doesn’t speak to me.

Buy MY LIFE IN PINK AND GREEN from an independent bookstore!

I read the galley of THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB within the first few days after it arrived in our shop. I remember that the Simon galleys arrived late that season and we had less than a week to evaluate them for initial purchase.

As soon as I started TMDBC I knew it would be perfect for us, and it was. We sold…oh, a bajillion copies. We book talked it at schools. We featured it at book fairs. We sold it to girls, their mothers, their grandmothers, their aunts. We urged people to read it together. I don’t think there was a tween girl who walked into our shop who left without a copy. (Except there must have been, because then we sold a bajillion of the paperback.)

I was a little wary when I heard a sequel was coming out, as I often am. I DID NOT WANT there to be a sequel to THE PENDERWICKS. (Until I read it, and then, oh yes, I wanted it.) Sometimes I just want a story to end. I want the characters to stay the ages they are. I don’t want the sequels to outgrow the girls.

(And I’m a little afraid of that happening here; in this new book the girls are now in 7th grade, and if they’re in 8th grade in the next book…well, then it really needs to end there. Please? Don’t age the series any further than that. Please? Don’t de-tween it!)

My copy of this book arrived in the mail yesterday. I thought about waiting, as I often do with sequels, in favor of a newer series…but curiosity got the better of me, and I cracked it open this morning. And finished it this evening.

It was really nice to be with Jess, Emma, Cassidy and Megan again. As I stated before, in this book the girls are now in 7th grade and, of course, things are changing for them. Boys are becoming more interesting – to everyone but Cassidy, who sees them as nothing more than hockey and baseball teammates and doesn’t understand her friends’ growing fascination with the opposite sex. She also doesn’t understand her mother’s fascination with the opposite sex – her father’s only been gone a couple of years; how can her tall, beautiful, ex-model mother be thinking of replacing him with a short bald accountant?

Megan’s fascination with clothes and ambition to become a designer is only growing, something her three friends don’t really understand. Who DOES understand is her former BFF Becca Chadwick – but snobby, snotty, loudmouthed, popular Becca is loathed by Emma, Jess, and Cassidy. (For good reason, a lot of the time, Megan has to admit – but it’s hard to let a best friend go forever.)

Jess’s parents finally break down and tell her that they may have to sell their beloved Half Moon Farm. And Emma? Emma’s begun to realize that her baby fat isn’t going to come off by itself, and that silent crushes can never be anything but crushes.

In the middle of all this turmoil, their mothers reconvene the Mother-Daughter Book Club they started last year. This year, however, the unthinkable happens: Becca Chadwick and her mother are invited to take part. How can Jess, Emma and Cassidy enjoy this place of refuge when their enemy is now in their midst, mocking not only the club itself but this year’s book selection, Anne of Green Gables? How can Megan be friends with her book buddies and her old BFF without alienating anyone? Can the farm be saved? Will Cassidy’s mom marry the bald accountant?

Oh, the delicious, nuanced drama.

Frederick never lets her characters descend into hysteria. She obviously remembers what it was like to be a middle-school girl, because she’s drawn four very distinct ones here (five if you count Becca). I always knew who was talking without looking at the chapter headings. I love that they’re not incredibly similar – several of these friendships were initially forced on them in the first novel, when their mothers (always close) decided that the book club would be the Best. Idea. Ever. The girls aren’t incredibly similar, and neither are their mothers, but they’re friends anyway, seeing enough in one another to bond over and appreciating what they can learn from their differences.

The friendships aren’t perfect, though, because middle-school girls aren’t perfect. Frederick doesn’t make the mistake of painting rosy pictures of girls skipping hand in hand, off to save the day for one another. They fight and they snap and they hurt and they gossip and they screw up and they apologize awkwardly and they misunderstand, just like everyone does. But at the end of the day, they are a haven for one another, and it’s that simple fact that had me closing this worthy sequel with a smile on my face.

Purchase at Powell’s or find your local independent bookstore.

Sixth-grader Molly is really not happy about things. Her dad is going to get married again (her mother passed away years ago) to a woman Molly and her best friend Tanna call The Claw. The Claw has changed her basketball-loving, Chinese food-ordering, hanging-around-the-house, don’t-ever-call-me-Mitch-my-name-is-Mitchell father into an organized activity- attending gourmand Mitch. The Claw has no idea how to act around kids (she treats Molly like she’s six) and doesn’t seem to particularly like them, either.

Molly was already having enough difficulty adjusting to the difference between fifth and sixth grade: co-ed lunches, switching classes every period, and the fact that she was apparently supposed to now be throwing herself at boys were all giving her some trouble. Add into that the Frizz (her problem hair) and her complete ineptitude in P.E. class and you can see that the last thing Molly needed was to hear Mitch and the Claw singing the Wedding March.

The Claw takes over most of the house for wedding plans, and Molly and Tanna’s daily afterschool hanging-out session is banished to the basement – where the Claw has “helpfully” set up an arts and crafts station that would be more at home in a preschool than with two sixth-graders. Out of frustration they begin digging around in the antiques that the Claw stores down there, and they make a bonanza of a discovery: a machine that accurately predicts who a person will marry.

Molly is horrified by what the machine predicts for her own future, but is more concerned when it confirms that the Claw will be her stepmother. What happens when she tries to change the results (and when the word gets out around school about the machine) makes for some truly excellent reading.

I could hand this book to anyone. There are never enough books like this. I enjoyed Wollman’s previous book Switched but I hope she sticks to tweens now because tweens need her. There are some serious issues in this book but it never becomes depressing; there’s a lot of lighthearted moments in this book but it never becomes fluff. I know my former bookstore is going to sell this like mad.

As soon as this book is published in January I am buying it for my cousin’s 11 1/2 year old daughter. She is going to love it.

Preorder at Powell’s or find your local independent bookstore.

This is a very nice book, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

Annie, Zoe and Genna have been best friends for years. They’re finishing up eighth grade, and, as often happens when kids reach this point in their lives, everything seems to be changing. When they were little, they called themselves the Teashop Girls, hanging out at Annie’s grandmother’s tea shop, the Steeping Leaf, and writing lists of rules about how to treat one another and how to stay friends forever. But now Genna seems boy-crazy and obsessed with acting, and Zoe’s all tied up with tennis, and the big mega-chain coffee shop across the street is sucking much-needed business away from the Leaf. Annie embarks on a well-intentioned (though not always well thought out) quest to save the Leaf and her friendships.

The book is sprinkled with tidbits of trivia about tea drinking and the history of tea, copies of old ads for tea and some delightful illustrations by Sujean Rim. I’m only an occasional tea drinker, but I had to have some while I read this. Schaefer’s got a way of making you want to eat and drink almost constantly; everything she writes about sounds delicious. She’s also got a nice light hand with the tone and a knack for creating “real” girls. I hope there will be a sequel because I’d like to know what happens to Annie, Zoe and Genna next.

I would hand this to girls who loved THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB, first and foremost, and we had a lot of those at our shop. Man, did we sell a ton of that book, and I hear the sequel’s doing well there too (I’ve got it on request from the library). But even though the girls in TEASHOP are older than the girls in MDBC, I think it’s a similar audience.

I’m in love with the cover, too – look at that totally adorable, normal looking girl. She’s not wearing heavy makeup or dressed like she’s 18. She’s a normal size. I am in love with her and in love with the cover – good colors, good font, good package. Simon usually does a nice job and this is no exception – whoever did the art direction/cover on this one deserves a pat on the back.

My only quibble is that the author’s website only links to Amazon as a source for purchasing the book. Since the main plotline of the book involves Annie trying to save her aunt’s independent teashop from being run out of town by the big corporate chain, it would be nice if Schaefer linked to Indiebound or Powell’s. The book also mentions Annie going to Barnes and Noble, but I’m told that the reference has been changed to an independent name, which is nice – the book sends a good message about shopping locally and I’d like to see that carried through some of the marketing as well as through the book itself.