Author: Vanita Braver
Publisher: Starbright Books
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new novel is reward aplenty!
Illustrated exquisitely by Jonathan Brown.
When Madison's Mom meets her off the school bus, Madison reveals her plan to sell candy and thereby earn herself a fine T-shirt from her school as a reward for generating money for classroom supplies. That evening they set off, and Madison starts recruiting neighbors, but she doesn't want to go to Seema Patel's house. Seema's family are new to the neighborhood. The story going around is that Seema talks funny, and as if that's not bad enough, no one wants to sit next to her on the school bus.
Madison rails fiercely against visiting the Patels and ends-up running off home. Mom isn't best pleased with this behavior. She asks Madison to seriously think about her actions, as does dad. Later, after a time for reflection, Madison decides she did indeed perpetrate a rash act, and she and mom go visit the Patels.
Madison is fascinated by the differences between her home and that of the Patels. She's even more enthralled by Seema's dolls of the world collection. Madison decides that she wants to be friends with Seema and introduce her new friend to her old friends.
I'd actually have liked this story to go on a little further, to show Madison and Seema going bike riding with Madison's old friend. It felt a little unfinished as it was, but this didn’t detract from the important message that it’s not just our similarities which make us interesting to each other, but our differences, too, and perhaps those differences are, in the last analysis, much more important.
The author is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and includes a page of advice at the back of the book on raising a moral child - which may not be exactly what you might think it means! This is a useful educational book, and intriguing story, and a fine teaching tool. It's part of a series, and I recommend it.
