Friendship Over

Starred review from September 1, 2014
A 10-year-old girl faces the various challenges of growing up. For her 10th birthday, Celie Valentine Altman gets a punching bag and a journal from her father, both of which she puts to good use. Her most pressing problem is that her best friend, Lula, has stopped speaking to her. Celie has no idea why, though she knows it's somehow connected to a fight she overheard between Lula's parents. Losing a best friend is heartbreaking for a girl of that age, and Celie's anger and confusion are palpable. Using a diary format and leavening her tale with humor, Sternberg gets Celie's voice just right, and readers should find her completely credible. Though she's kind and resourceful, Celie's overarching trait is an anger that she has trouble controlling. She expresses her frustrations in words and pictures, and Wright's spot-on black-and-white illustrations perfectly complement Sternberg's text. Besides Lula's mysterious defection, Celie must deal with her older and better-balanced sister, Jo; Jo's new buddy, Trina, whom Celie dislikes; her embarrassing cousin Carla, who comes to babysit when Celie's mother goes out of town; and her feelings about her suddenly addled grandmother. This satisfying slice-of-life story about the permutations of friendship and family resonates. (Fiction. 8-11)

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October 1, 2014

Gr 3-5-Ten-year-old Celie confides her worries about her ex-best friend, her maddening older sister, and her ailing grandmother in her journal. Humor and an accessible epistolary format lighten the story's heavy issues of bullying, age-related illness, and parental discord. Celie meets tough situations with spirit and humor and accompanies even her angstiest entries with doodles of brownies, narwhals, and her friends and family. The simple line drawings and handwritten typeface make this a prime readalike for other fiction graphic novel hybrids such as Renee Russell's "Dork Diaries" (S. & S.), Amy Ignatow's "Popularity Papers" (Abrams), and Marissa Moss's "Amelia's Notebook" (S. & S.). This title has both wide appeal and substance and begins what will likely be a popular series.-Lisa Goldstein, Brooklyn Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2014
As she did in Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie and its sequels, Sternberg exposes the travails of adolescence with authenticity and humor in this first volume of the Top-
Secret Diary of Celie Valentine series. For Celie’s 10th birthday, her father gives her a punching bag, a journal, and a note: “May you find each beneficial whenever you’re struggling to work through your feelings.” His gift is right on target, as Celie is working through quite a bit. Her best friend blows her off for another classmate and doesn’t invite her to a party; her older sister takes up with a mean-spirited friend and locks Celie out of their shared bedroom; and her grandmother is demonstrating some alarming behavior, including stashing her trash in the freezer and mistaking Celie on the phone for her deceased sister. Celie pours out her feelings on all of this and more in free-association diary entries full of candor and wry exaggeration. Letters, emails, and Wright’s (The Best Bike Ride Ever) punchy b&w sketches pep up this lighthearted yet emotionally layered story. Ages 8–11. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio.

October 15, 2014
Grades 3-6 What do you do when your best friend suddenly won't talk to you? The journal her father gave Celie for her birthday provides a way for the fourth-grader to vent during the two weeks that her long-time best friend Lulu ignores her. With the appearance of hand-lettering, pasted-in artifacts, and believable sketchlike illustrations, this is an appealing chronicle of a familiar experience. In her family's big-city apartment, she shares a bedroom with her older sister, Jo, who has her own friendship ups and downs. Celie and Jo are often at odds, but the sixth-grader can also be very supportive, as are their parents, though they're coping with a larger family crisis of Celie's grandmother, who has begun to behave oddly. At the end of this book, it seems likely that Granny will be moving in with them and that coping with a grandparent with dementia will be an additional issue in this promising new family-and-friendship series grounded by a likable, authentic protagonist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2015
For her tenth birthday, Celie receives from her dad both a punching bag and a journal; he hopes she'll use them to help work through her strong feelings (and perhaps "inflict significantly less violence" on her older sister, Jo). The punching bag gathers dust, but Celie makes good use of the diary, in which she relates her friendship and family woes through authentic-sounding entries, humorous drawings, and a variety of notes and letters. Her best friend Lula has suddenly become mean, declaring she has other plans and can't come over for Celie's birthday. Sixth-grader Jo, too, starts kicking Celie out of their shared bedroom to hang out with a new friend, the very unlikable Trina, and there are new, grown-up items in Jo's dresser (Celie, snooping around: "I closed the drawer and got very quiet. Bras and deodorant scare me"). Then Granny starts acting strangely (e.g., putting her trash in the freezer), and Mom has to fly to Granny's to see what's going on -- leaving weird Cousin Carla to take care of the girls while Dad's at work. Sternberg (Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie, rev. 5/11) has Celie navigate through her troubles in a manner both satisfying and believable; readers can look forward to more of Celie's heartfelt, funny, and engaging diaries. jennifer m. brabander

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)