Mallory on the Move
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
When eight-and-a-half-year-old Mallory McDonald’s parents tell her that they are moving, she’s mad—really mad! It’s not fair! How can they make her move away from Mary Ann, her best friend in the whole wide world? Who will she paint her toenails with, tell secrets to, and make scrapbooks with? When Mallory arrives at her new house on Wish Pond Road, things are terrible. Her room is too small and the girl next door is mean. But Joey lives next door, too. Even though he doesn’t paint his toes, he tells jokes, helps teach her cat to do tricks, and shows her how to skateboard. Mallory’s having so much fun she forgets the pact she made with Mary Ann never to make friends with a boy next door. But, when Mary Ann comes to visit, what will Mallory do? Will she have to choose between her best friend and her new friend?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spinning a spry variation on a familiar theme, Friedman launches a series starring a spunky eight-year-old who is not happy about her family's impending move. Mallory makes a determined attempt to avoid the inevitable, reciting for her patient mother the day-by-day agenda that she and her best friend, Mary Ann, have devised, concluding, "As you can see from this very busy schedule, I don't have time to move this summer.... Sorry. Maybe we can talk again in the fall." The heroine's chatty first-person narrative brims with similarly flip comments and asides, as Mallory trades barbs with her caustic 10-year-old brother, grumbles that her new bedroom is so small that she " think there's enough air" for her and her beloved cat (as she writes to Mary Ann), and develops a friendship with Joey, her new neighbor (despite the fact that she has solemnly pledged a "pinkie swear" to Mary Ann that she will "never be friends with any boy next door"). The plot proceeds at a perky pace as she and Joey devise pranks to pay back their self-absorbed older siblings; Mallory copes with her divided loyalty between her two friends; and, when Mary Ann comes to visit, is afraid to divulge the fact that she's broken her "pinkie swear." Readers may groan at many of Mallory's relentless jokes, yet they'll find her and Joey likable characters worth revisiting. Ages 7-10.
