Thank You, Lucky Stars

Author: Beverly Donofrio

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books

Publication Year: 2008

Lexile: 950L (This book is not in the Lexile Book Database. I used the Lexile Analyzer to get this value.)

Most of the readers will be: Mid to late elementary school girls.

Reader's Advisory: For a non-fiction book on friendship check out The Best Friends' Handbook by Erica Orloff.

Summary:
Ally Miller is super excited about starting fifth grade. She and her best friend Betsy are in the same class and they are going to be in the fifth grade talent show together. But when Ally arrives at the bus stop on the first day she is met with disappointment. She and Betsy were supposed to dress alike, but Betsy is dressed like Mona (their sworn enemy) instead. Things go downhill from there as Ally realizes she has Betsy replaced her, but she is now the school reject. The only person who wants to be her friend is even weirder than she is: the new kid Tina. Tina wears pants that are too short and looks like she could own a pet snake. But as the weeks go on, Ally learns to appreciate Tina's friendship and even teachers her how to disco so they can dance together in the talent show. After Tina and Ally have a disastrous run through in front of the other talent show participants, Betsy and Mona tell Ally that their band needs a go-go dancer. Will Ally ditch Tina to join the group that has been ostracizing her all year?

My favorite passage:

You know those lines in the wedding vows, "For better or for worse, in sickness and in health"? When I thought about it, I saw how that was kind of how it would feel being friends with Tina - except for the "till death do us part" part. Here was the "worse" part: she really did look like she had a pet snake, and she did sometimes wear weird Princess Leia hair. She talked All The Time, and kept right on waving her arm like a rusty fan in class even though Mrs. No Joy hardly ever called on her. And Tina was a reject.
Then again, so was I.
Here was the "better" part: she was funny in her strange Tina way. She was really smart and knew a lot about a whole lot of things, even if she did make some of it up. And she liked me, even though she could plainly see that just about nobody else did. Plus, she'd stuck up for me. She was a loyal friend. And I had to admit, lunchtime was the most fun part of every day.
And so when Tina invited me to her house after school to cut out pictures for the talent show bulletin boards, I accepted. (pg 77-78)

What I really think:
Parts of this book are touching and parts are painful, and in both cases it is because of how real these friendship issues are. Kids first start to think about popularity in the fourth and fifth grade. They have to worry about their own status as "cool" or "uncool" and also have to decide how they are going to treat people who are less "cool" than they are. This book is so, so important to children at this time in their lives. They will certainly relate to one character or another and begin to understand how fifth graders can be cruel to one another, but can choose not to be. Hopefully they will also see that being uncool isn't the end of the world, and there are still great friendships to be had.