Liz Rosenberg

Ayoung girl can’t help but be angry when she learns her best friend is talking about her behind her back.

As the title suggests, everything hinges on what exactly James said. The pint-sized, artistic narrator heard that James—her best friend—told everyone she thinks she is perfect. But she most certainly does not! She thinks she has big feet and plain hair, and she messes up in math all the time. A misunderstanding is hinted at in the very first pages, where Rosenberg and Myers set up a visual game of “Telephone”: James tells Aiden, who tells Hunter, who tells Katie (and so forth)…. But the girl knows what she heard and retaliates by giving James the silent treatment. All day at school, James tries harder and harder to be her friend, to no avail. Until the art show, when she suddenly realizes that perhaps James said something entirely different. This common childhood struggle is enhanced by the art, which beautifully depicts the girl’s sense of betrayal. With a dripping paintbrush in hand, she throws angry splotches over Myers’ illustrations, adding her own images in wide, watercolor strokes. She and her friend, depicted realistically, are surrounded by taunting stick figures. The little girl is Caucasian with a brown pageboy; the bespectacled little boy is African-American.

Perfectly in tune with the charged emotions involved in navigating friendship and trust. (Picture book. 4-8)

-Kirkus Review… (mehr)

I read all of Louisa May Alcott's books as a child or young adult. I also read March by Geraldine Brooks, which is a book about the father of the little women and his experiences during the Civil War. So when LibraryThing offered this book for their Early Reviewer draw I put in a request and received it.

This book is subtitled "The Life of Louisa May Alcott" but it really is the story of the whole Alcott family. What I didn't realize until I read this biography is how much the family in Little Women was based upon the Alcott family. The major difference is that Bronson Alcott did not go away to fight in the Civil War but he was mostly absent leaving his family to fend for themselves. If theres a villain in this book it would probably be Bronson. As a gentleman he couldn't see himself working for others but he could never make enough money as a teacher or a speaker to support his family. This never seemed to really bother him and so it was up to Mrs. Alcott and later the two older girls to work. But of course they were also ill-suited for employment other than being a governess or a companion. Fortunately Louisa parlayed her writing ability into a very good lifelihood. The Alcott girls were blessed to have Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne as close family friends which certainly gave them intellectual riches even if their material goods were lacking.

This book is aimed at ages 10 to 14 but personally I would offer it to the latter ages as there are some difficult concepts to take in.… (mehr)