Class Favorite

December 3, 2007
Sara Thurman suffers a string of humiliations that begins when her mother sends her roses at school—not to celebrate Valentine's Day, but because the eighth-grader has finally gotten her period. Then someone gets wind of Sara's entrance to womanhood and decorates her locker with tampons and napkins, and soon it seems that the whole school pegs her as a magnet for disaster. Sara wrongly accuses her best friend of blabbing her secrets and quickly accepts consolation from the all-too-obvious culprit, also embarking on an improbable scheme to be voted Class Favorite for the yearbook. Morris (Original Divas
) hammers lessons about loyalty and forgiveness a little too noisily, and some of Sara's catastrophes feel more manufactured than comic. Nonetheless, the author creates a funny twist to the tried-and-true theme of adolescent angst in the unexpectedly composed way Sara handles each cringe-inducing crisis, and girls will like this character. As lagniappe, Morris opens each chapter with a thematically related, magazine-style quiz question (“Are You the Keeper of Secrets or the Disher of Gossip?”); answers can be scored at the end to discover “Which Yearbook Award Will You Receive?” Ages 9-13.

March 1, 2008
Gr 5-8-When eighth-grader Sara Thurman finally gets her first period, her mother sends her "period flowers" on Valentine's Day. Despite Sara's efforts to keep it quiet, the entire student body soon knows that she's "entered womanhood" and the jokes are endless. But who spilled her secret? Was it her friend Arlene, the only person Sara told about the flowers' origins, or Kirstie, the new girl who is suddenly smothering Sara with attention? This incident sets off a string of mishaps that includes Sara wearing an outfit identical to her teacher's and exploding The Ball, a cherished winning basketball from the Bandits' only state championship in 1989. Also, Sara is adjusting to her parents' separation, her friendship with Arlene is in a shambles, and she has a crush on a boy who seems way out of her league. Despite everything, Sara keeps her cool and carries on with her plan to become popular. When it's yearbook time, she isn't voted Class Favorite as she'd hoped, but she does earn the Courage award for her ability to overcome circumstances that would cause most teenagers to enter the Witness Protection Program. This fun, fast-paced book is full of realistic dialogue and laugh-out-loud passages. Sara's sticky situations will make readers cringe while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief that these things aren't happening to them."Robyn Zaneski, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.