Molly isn't my favorite historical character (she's constantly complaining), so this wasn't my favorite collection. Molly has more changes to deal with as her Aunt Eleanor decides to become a pilot, Molly gets overly caught up in the excitement of getting to meet a movie star and forgets about the importance of the War Bond rally itself, Molly gets in a fight with Susan over Susan's creative ideas for doing a presentation, Molly gets jealous over Bennet, and decides she'll take care of him without anyone's help, and Molly gets so caught up in playing Sacagawea that she gets lost on a hike. Molly is helped out of these dilemmas and hopefully learns from them, and we learn something from the historical information after each story. ( )

This is a single volume comprising the five short stories about the American Girl character Molly, originally published in the American Girl magazine in the late 1990s and later in individual volumes between 1998 and 2004.

Each story gives further insight into what life may have been like during World War Two for a nine-year-old girl. Molly McIntire has the same sorts of thoughts and emotions as many children do, including pride, stubbornness, sibling rivalry, movie star admiration, and so on.

The stories are cute and provide a nice addition to the central series of six stories about Molly. With the current military situation in the USA, I can see the stories as being popular with military children, whether girls or boys. And, indeed, I think that they could appeal to both sexes. "Molly's A+ Partner," "Molly's Puppy Tale," and "Molly Marches On" could easily be told with a boy protagonist (say, Mark instead of Molly) and work just as well.

My personal favorite part of the book is the "Looking Back" sections after each story. These short articles give real-world information relating to a theme in each story: "Flying in 1944" for "Molly Takes Flight"; "Movies in 1944" for "Molly and the Movie Star"; "Finding Hope in the Past" for "Molly's A+ Partner"; "Dogs in 1944" for "Molly's Puppy Tale"; and "The Story of Sacajawea" for "Molly Marches On."

The size of the book is ideal, too. It's about 2/3 the size of a regular paperback, though much wider, which makes it kind of cute and appealing. There's an attached ribbon bookmark, too, to help keep your place when reading over an extended period of time. ( )