Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/5/2007

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 3/5/2007

Picture Books

Bounce
Doreen Cronin, illus. by Scott Menchin. S&S/Atheneum, $14 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4169-1627-7

In this charming follow-up to Wiggle, Cronin, Menchin and their doggie hero guide readers in life lessons as a series of literal ups and downs. "If you bounce into a puddle," the chipper canine says as he leaps off a lamppost à la Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain, "it's best to bounce in boots." The author completes the rhyme on the following spread, which finds the pooch with a spring in his step in the produce department: "If you must bounce in the market,/ it's best not to bounce in fruits!" Parents will appreciate the words of caution when bouncing gets out of hand ("Bouncing with your best friend is called a bouncing double./ Bouncing on the couch is called big bouncing trouble"; Menchin shows the two airborne with only the couch's back visible, then tumbling to the floor with only the furniture's feet showing). The artist works in bold ink outlines and bright, even digital colors, and uses whimsical photographic images here and there for comic punctuation. Cronin and Menchin build to a bravura finish, with an allusion to love: "A bounce can turn into a bump,/ a bump into a fall./ But it's better to have bounced and bumped.../ than never to have bounced at all!" (the long-eared hero sports a plethora of bandages, but also a wistful smile). Readers young and old will likely enjoy bouncing through these pages. Ages 1-4. (May)

Goodnight, Sweet Pig
Linda Bailey, illus. by Josée Masse. Kids Can, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-55337-844-0

Bailey (Stanley's Wild Ride)introduces a piglet named Hamlette (aka pig number one), who actually wants to go to bed. But one by one, her nine fellow pigs burst into her bedroom with much different agendas. Pig number two wants to "read with a light,/ and eat buttered toast all through the night," while the last arrival, pig number 10, is "a famous basketball star/ who brought his whole team in a luxury car!" When Hamlette finally reaches the end of her rope ("How can a poor pig girl get some sleep?"), the perpetrators sheepishly depart in countdown form; those last to leave even make amends with a bedtime story (pig number five), "a tender kiss goodnight" (pig number 4) and other goodhearted ministrations. Masse (Three Cat and Mouse Tales) packs the subtly grained acrylic paintings with mayhem and pratfalls, including a bride-pig falling into a cake. But the elegant palette and crisp, editorial-style characterizations seem ill-matched to the comically chaotic proceedings. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)

Me I Am!
Jack Prelutsky, illus. by Christine Davenier. FSG/Kroupa, $16 (32p) ISBN 978-0-374-34902-8

Like Dr. Seuss's "Sam I Am" (from Green Eggs and Ham), Prelutsky's trio of heroes extols the virtues of individualism. However, it is Davenier's (Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen) imaginative artwork that brings this playful picture book uniquely to life. All of the three featured characters insist, "I am the only Me I Am/ who qualifies as me;/ no Me I Am has been before,/ and none will ever be." Davenier portrays each child with enough specific details and comedic vignettes to create three visual stories even though the poem itself does not differentiate character traits or personal effects. A sports-minded girl full of joie de vivre rejects a fancy dress in favor of a pirate's outfit. A budding scientist happily creates a makeshift bird hospital for an injured feathered friend. An inventive aspiring ballerina creates a hat from a tissue box, and gives a backyard performance with her dog ("Tickets 5¢"). When her pet steals the word "Me" from the text, all three children join up in hot pursuit of the pooch, attracting many other kids. On the final spread, the multicultural parade climbs over the word Me! as if it were an enticing piece of playground equipment. Davenier's distinctive, lively illustrations save the book from being an endorsement of the Me-too generation's fixation on the self. She transforms it into a celebration of creativity and emphasizes all those human endeavors that both set us apart and bring us together. Ages 3-6. (May)

New Socks
Bob Shea. Little, Brown, $12.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-316-01357-4

Slick digital design and silly antics rule the roost in this paper-over-board celebration of footwear, narrated by an excitable young chicken. "Notice anything different about me?" the peep asks. "Nope, it's not my glasses," he adds, pointing the squiggly line of his wing at the heavy black frames around his black-dot eyes. A close-up of his feet reveals two reasons for his apparent delight: "I got New Socks!" Where the chick's yellow body is a double-yolk kidney bean shape, with black sticks for legs and just a hint of chatty beak, his bulbous orange socks look like inflated moon boots, with a star-shaped sparkle on one toe to indicate their pristine condition. The chick skates across a wood floor and, at the playground, calls out, "Watch me not be scared on the big-kids slide! In New Socks!" Graphic designer Shea uses animation techniques akin to Mo Willems, from emphatic first-person statements to iconic illustrations to near-empty backdrops of minimalist white and robin's-egg-blue. This comic sequence holds up as an exercise in dynamic layout, but like its title product, it seems unlikely to seem fresh after repeated use. Ages 3-6. (Apr.)

I'm Going to Grandma's
Mary Ann Hoberman, illus. by Tiphanie Beeke. Harcourt, $16 (32p) ISBN 978-0-15-216592-5

Why is this visit to Grandma's different from all other visits? Because the young pigtailed narrator is "not only going/ to stay for the day/ I'm going to stay/ for the night!" The house holds a host of pleasures, from dressing up in an old wedding gown to hearing Grandpa play " 'Three Blind Mice' on his musical saw." And when night falls, and the girl's anxieties about being away from home bubble up, Grandma knows exactly how to make it "all/ be all right," telling her granddaughter family stories connected with the patchwork quilt that covers the girl's bed. That night, the child has sweet dreams: "I dream I am making a quilt of my own/ and my dreams keep me cozy all night." Hoberman (One of Each) varies the rhyme scheme just enough to keep a lilt going and to convey the charms of this warm familial circle. Beeke's (Fletcher and the Falling Leaves) idyllic depiction of senior living may strike some youngsters as fantasy. Grandma and Grandpa live in a bona fide cottage with nary a TV in sight, and Grandma wears an ensemble that recalls Raggedy Ann (complete with red striped stockings). No matter: the grandparents' doting feels utterly real, as does the comfort and security that the girl draws from their presence. Even readers with the hippest urban grandparents may well find this as satisfying as a plateful of warm, homemade cookies. Ages 3-7. (Apr.)

Big Smelly Bear
Britta Teckentrup. Boxer Books (Sterling, dist.), $12.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-905417-37-7

Teckentrup's (Kancil and the Crocodiles) determinedly dirty and deliciously rendered hero looks a lot like a mucky soccer field to which paws, ears and a snout have been added. His name is no exaggeration-he smells so bad that flies "were the only ones that ever came close." What finally gets him to come clean? A bad itch he can't reach and a cutie named Big Fluffy Bear, who offers to scratch his back if he'll take a bath first (she makes this offer while perched in a tree, safely out of range of the stink). The two bears quibble and Big Smelly Bear acquiesces grumpily (the interplay will undoubtedly remind some readers of exchanges between parent and child) but it's clearly the beginning of a beautiful friendship. While its subject matter is grubby, this is one handsome book. Teckentrup creates strikingly graphic spreads from simple, large-scale shapes and expressionistic overlays of texture and color. The combination of the blunt text and bold pictures might even help cajole reluctant bathers to get their feet wet. Ages 3-6. (Mar.)

Gator
Randy Cecil. Candlewick, $15.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-7636-2952-6

Gator, who is a grinning green merry-go-round fixture and not an actual reptile, recalls a time when the amusement park was popular with children. Gradually, crowds stop coming, and the hurdy-gurdy days fade. Gator imagines the ride operating and "the wind on his face. But it was only a spider attaching its web to his snout." Somehow (not shown in the pictures) Gator detaches from his carousel pole, leaving a "hole in his heart." Waddling like a penguin, he follows the sound of laughter to a zoo, where his painted-on saddle distinguishes him from the (mostly) sleeping alligators. Cecil's (We've All Got Bellybuttons!) nostalgic tale echoes many classic books. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, Gator isn't real enough to blend with living creatures; like Virginia Lee Burton's Little House, he is old-fashioned but sturdy. His quest, like theirs, ends with a lucky break: a boy hears Gator sniffling, and the boy's father recognizes Gator, leading to a revival of the decrepit carousel. Soon "everything was just the way it used to be." Cecil's shadowy, sepia-tinted oil paintings recall the art for Fred Marcellino's I, Crocodile, but attached to a rather maudlin story. Even if Gator's desire to reverse time is understandable, the wishful conclusion feels false rather than magical. Ages 3-5. (Mar.)

The 108th Sheep
Ayano Imai. Tiger Tales, $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-58925-063-5

This book's hefty format (12"x12") seems to work against the small, quiet story within its covers. Emma, a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked girl, stars in pictures framed with a wine-colored outline and wide border. She decides to count sheep in order to fall asleep one wakeful night, and newcomer Imai depicts the animals high-jumping over the heroine's headboard. The creatures, whose numbers appear on their fleece like football jerseys, burst through the pictures' frames and onto the opposite side of the spread. Emma makes it to 107, then hears a "thud." Sheep 108 is too small to clear her headboard, and various schemes to help him make the vault fail. " 'This is a big problem,' said the 109th sheep, pushing forward. 'If 108 doesn't jump over your bed, Emma, then none of us can get any sleep.' " At last resourceful Emma finds a solution. Most of the book's creative energy is visual, as the animals behave in endearingly un-sheep-like ways. Despite all the activity, Imai maintains a sleepytime atmosphere with lots of soft, smoky shading and a peaceful gray-cream-pink color scheme. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)

Poems in Black and White
Kate Miller. Boyds Mills/Wordsong, $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59078-412-9

Both the lyrical poems and artful monotypes in this handsomely designed volume explore images in black and white. A dandelion's "head is filled with/ winged seeds-her fluffy/ cloud-white dreams held/ back like eager children." The family dog hears the "scented sound/ of thieving paws" belonging to a raccoon with "white around/ [his] bandit eyes." Each poem is etched like frost on a windowpane, the images both precise and evocative. While the topics focus on objects and people familiar to a young audience, the tone, voice and vocabulary of the poems may be better suited to an older audience. Nostalgic entries celebrate a shock of white hair in a mother's ebony hair or the inked footprints of a newborn, "unique to you that/ mark you mine/ ten rounded toes/ like stepping stones/ left and right/ a perfect pair/ adventure bound." Nonetheless, the poems and intriguing illustrations are startling: on a black page, the white in the poem "Comet" takes the physical shape of a comet falling from the sky, while on the opposite page the illustration elegantly captures the image of "a swirling smudge/ of luminescent white/ .../ as if some/ impish thumb/ had smeared/ a star/ before/ the night/ had dried." These poems and illustrations illuminate simple moments-"snow-white blossoms" of popcorn escaping from a pot, a black cat basking near white lace curtains-with remarkable sensitivity and insight. Ages 6-up. (Mar.)

This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness
Joyce Sidman, illus. by Pamela Zagarenski. Houghton, $16 (48p) ISBN 978-0-618-61680-0

Sidman (Song of the Waterboatman and Other Pond Poems) explains, via an introduction from one of the book's sixth-grade characters, that the poems contained in this often humorous and touching anthology were inspired by the title poem of apology, which was penned by William Carlos Williams. The student in Mrs. Merz's class who introduces the book explains that some of the students received answers to their "sorry" poems. One pair of poems shares a spread and addresses a dodge ball exchange ("Sorry/ Reubs,/ for belting you/ as hard/ as I could/ in dodge ball/ I'd like/ to say/ I wouldn't/ do it again/ but I'd/ be lying"). But for most entries, unfortunately, in order to read the call-and-response in succession, readers must awkwardly flip from the first half of the book ("Apologies") to the second ("Responses"). Yet the poems successfully navigate the complicated terrain for those who seek forgiveness. In one especially moving poem, "The Black Spot," Alyssa tells her sister Carrie that the black spot of lead on Carrie's arm makes manifest the "nugget of darkness" within Alyssa that propelled her to injure her sibling (Carrie's response conveys her enduring anger at Alyssa). Zagarenski's (Mites to Mastodons) inventive mixed-media illustrations brim with items found in a classroom: a dictionary entry on "apology," for instance, becomes part of a student's clothing, and white hole reinforcements resemble a character's stolen doughnuts. But the book's odd organization seems a missed opportunity to tie the well-wrought, corresponding poems together and reinforce the complex relationships between the characters. Ages 9-12. (Apr.)

Fiction

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Jeff Kinney. Abrams/Amulet, $14.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8109-9313-6

Kinney's popular Web comic, which began in 2004, makes its way to print as a laugh-out-loud "novel in cartoons," adapted from the series. Middle school student Greg Heffley takes readers through an academic year's worth of drama. Greg's mother forces him to keep a diary ("I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I specifically told her to get one that didn't say 'diary' on it"), and in it he loosely recounts each day's events, interspersed with his comic illustrations. Kinney has a gift for believable preteen dialogue and narration (e.g., "Don't expect me to be all 'Dear Diary' this and 'Dear Diary' that"), and the illustrations serve as a hilarious counterpoint to Greg's often deadpan voice. The hero's utter obliviousness to his friends and family becomes a running joke. For instance, on Halloween, Greg and his best friend, Rowley, take refuge from some high school boys at Greg's grandmother's house; they taunt the bullies, who then T.P. her house. Greg's journal entry reads, "I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up. But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn't have anything planned for today anyway." Kinney ably skewers familiar aspects of junior high life, from dealing with the mysteries of what makes someone popular to the trauma of a "wrestling unit" in gym class. His print debut should keep readers in stitches, eagerly anticipating Greg's further adventures. Ages 8-13. (Apr.)

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
Michael Scott. Delacorte, $16.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-385-73357-1

Twin 15-year-old siblings Sophie and Josh Newman take summer jobs in San Francisco across the street from one another: she at a coffee shop, he at a bookstore owned by Nick and Perry Fleming. In the vey first chapter, armed goons garbed in black with "dead-looking skin and... marble eyes" (actually Golems) storm the bookshop, take Perry hostage and swipe a rare Book (but not before Josh snatches its two most important pages). The stolen volume is the Codex, an ancient text of magical wisdom. Nick Fleming is really Nicholas Flamel, the 14th-century alchemist who could turn base metal into gold, and make a potion that ensures immortality. Sophie and Josh learn that they are mentioned in the Codex's prophecies: "The two that are one will come either to save or to destroy the world." Mayhem ensues, as Irish author Scott draws on a wide knowledge of world mythology to stage a battle between the Dark Elders and their hired gun-Dr. John Dee-against the forces of good, led by Flamel and the twins (Sophie's powers are "awakened" by the goddess Hekate, who'd been living in an elaborate treehouse north of San Francisco). Not only do they need the Codex back to stop Dee and company, but the immortality potion must be brewed afresh every month. Time is running out, literally, for the Flamels. Proceeding at a breakneck pace, and populated by the likes of werewolves and vampires, the novel ends on a precipice, presumably to be picked up in volume two. Ages 12-up. (May)

7 Days at the Hot Corner
Terry Trueman. HarperTempest, $15.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-06-057494-9

With a compelling twist on a coming-out story, Trueman's (Stuck in Neutral) novel stars 18-year-old Scott Latimer, a baseball fanatic who plays third base (the "hot corner" of the title) for his high school's team. Scott's world is thrown into disarray when his best friend, Travis, reveals that he's gay during the citywide baseball tournament. Now, in addition to worrying about playing well in the seven-day tournament, Scott anxiously awaits the results of an HIV test that he gets in secret: he fears he may have contracted AIDS after a batting cage incident, in which he wound up with Travis's blood on his hands. When Travis's parents kick their son out of the house, thinking he may influence his younger brother, Travis moves in with Scott's family, causing additional tension between the two best friends. An article in the high school newspaper anonymously relates Travis's struggles as a gay high school senior, and Scott fears that his classmates might think he's gay as well if they discover the article is about Travis. Scott wrestles with gripping fear about potentially having contracted AIDS, anger that his best friend kept his sexuality a secret from him for so many years, confusion about his own and his fellow classmates' prejudices, and concern for Travis's safety. Readers will likely be affected by this emotional journey of a kid who would have been happy to limit his concerns to catching blazing line drives and working toward a shot at the major leagues. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

The Game
Diana Wynne Jones. Penguin/Firebird, $11.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-14-240718-9

Celestial intrigue and the nature of storytelling are just two of the strands woven together in Jones's (the Chrestomanci books) inventive novella. Sent from her grandparents' London home in disgrace, Hayley arrives in Ireland to stay with her aunts and cousins in their rambling castle home. The girl takes to her new life almost immediately, especially the thrilling game her cousins play, in which they venture into the mythosphere-a mysterious realm where they perform various tasks drawn from the worlds of fairytale, myth and legend. In the course of her own quests, Hayley discovers the truth about her own unearthly nature. She gets the chance to rescue her long-lost parents from dreadful fates, to which they've been condemned by domineering Uncle Jolyon, a power-hungry god thinly disguised as an unpleasant business man. Readers less familiar with classical mythology will be helped (and may well find their interest piqued) by a note at story's end that clearly links the original Greco-Roman characters with their modern-day avatars. A sparkling treat. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Tantalize
Cynthia Leitich Smith. Candlewick, $16.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7636-2791-1

Following her parents' death, Quincie Morris was left in her Uncle Davidson's care, and the fate of the family's Italian restaurant was left in hers. Now 17, Quincie, who narrates, and her uncle have renamed the place Sanguini's. They've remodeled it with a "vampire theme," which they believe will sell in their Texas college town since "vampires are a fringe population, and Austin is a tolerant place." A month before the grand re-opening, however, the longtime chef is mauled to death in the kitchen, and the murder suspect is a werewolf. Quincie finds this problematic, since her lifelong best friend and love interest, Kieren, is a "hybrid werewolf" who traces his lupine heritage to the wolves that roamed Ireland with St. Patrick. A new chef shows up who may be talented but is also spooky, with red contact lenses, pale hair and a menu featuring sweetbreads, blood sausage and baby squirrels in honey cream sauce. Best known for her Native American stories, Smith uses advertisements, newspaper clippings and menu pages to liven the pace, and creates palpable tension in the novel's second half. Quincie's story hews closer to the campy Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes (e.g., " 'You ate the police?!' I exclaimed") than to the elegant romanticism of Stephenie Meyer's books, but horror fans will be hooked by Kieren's quiet, hirsute hunkiness, and Texans by the premise that nearly everybody in their capitol is a shapeshifter. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)

Angels on Sunset Boulevard
Melissa de la Cruz. S&S, $15.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-4169-2767-9.

De la Cruz (the Au Pairs series) invents a dark world against an L.A. backdrop in this novel, giving readers plenty to puzzle over and ponder. A fictional social networking Web site called TAP.com lies at the center of this story about a missing rock star, the girl who loved him, and rich boy Nick, who is learning to see beneath the surface. Johnny Silver, Taj's boyfriend and "the kind of star that spoke for a generation," literally vanishes from the stage, and he is not alone. Nick's sister goes missing, and soon, so does his best friend. Through Taj's and Nick's alternating perspectives, readers not only watch the mismatched pair fall for each other, they learn TAP's secrets, from the "otherworldly" punch served at the site's sponsored parties, to the strange ritual that happens in the parties' secret rooms. ("TAP-The Angels' Practice... the website was only the beginning. It was also a movement, a phenomenon, and a drug," says Taj.) Nick suspects the Web site is connected to the disappearances. Memorable secondary characters people the novel, such as Taj's drag queen uncle, Mama Fay, and Sutton, Johnny's teen manager with "the smile of the devil." But the story wraps up before readers get enough of them. Teens may have trouble tracking all the pieces of the mystery, but will compulsively turn the pages-and be haunted by the story's provocative themes, such as the underbelly of social networking sites, and why "sixty percent of America's teenagers believe they will become famous." Ages 14-up. (Mar.)

Comics

Tiny Tyrant
Lewis Trondheim and
Fabrice Parme, trans. from the French by Alexis Siegel. Roaring Brook/First Second, $12.95 paper (128p) ISBN 978-1-59643-094-5

Selfish, short-tempered, unscrupulous, stubborn, and willing to do anything to get what he wants"-that's King Ethelbert, the pint-size monarch of the nation of Portocristo in Trondheim's hilarious series of illustrated stories, originally serialized between 2001 and 2004. Ethelbert rules the way any six-year-old would-requiring his chef to build gigantic sundaes so he can eat just one bite, demanding to see Santa Claus in person, passing a law that makes him the automatic winner of all television game shows ("The King of Portocristo ran his country as a pig might an aircraft carrier," writes his court biographer). Even his good intentions end up going spectacularly wrong, as when he decides to make amends to the parents of his kingdom for a botched plan by sending each family a live alligator ("That way, parents will be able to make fashionable backpacks for their children." An ongoing competition with his cousin Sigismund for the hand of the wealthy Princess Hildegardina provides a bit of continuity to the chapters, but by and large it is a collection of brief, stand-alone episodes, rendered in a quirky visual style that channels a blend of The Pink Panther and John Kricfalusi. Ages 8-up. (May)

Beowulf
Gareth Hinds. Candlewick, $21.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-7636-3022-5

The king of heroic epics gets a lavish visual interpretation in Hinds's full-color mixed-media gem, originally self-published as three separate issues in 2000. He begins with a credit to two versions of the familiar story (A.J. Church's 1904 translation and that of Francis Gummere), in which a vicious monster named Grendel terrorizes the great hall of King Hrothgar for 12 winters, and the hero Beowulf arrives from afar, to try to defeat the creature and succeeds-with his bare hands. Then he must contend with Grendel's mother, when she comes to avenge her son's fate; the third chapter deals with the mournful end to the hero's life, resulting from a battle with an enormous dragon. Each chapter begins with a brief narrative (paying homage to the cadences of the story's early verse renditions), before giving way to a lengthy, wordless and bloody battle. Hinds's angular perspectives and unusual color palettes (dark, ruddy colors, deep burgundy blood, and not a ray of sunshine in sight) lend the book an almost overwhelming sense of menace. The third and most emotionally forceful chapter centers around an incredible two-page spread that shows the dragon awakening; it's an arresting image in a book filled with many. For fantasy fans both young and old, this makes an ideal introduction to a story without which the entire fantasy genre would look very different; many scenes may be too intense for very young readers. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)

Dead High YearbookEdited by
Mark McVeigh and
Ivan Velez. Dutton, $18.99 (80p) ISBN 978-0-525-47783-9

McVeigh and Velez's collection of nine stories by various writers and illustrators crosses the line between macabre and tasteless, but horror movie-addicted teens will likely devour it for that very reason. A line-up of teenagers meet horrific fates in stories of varying quality. A story about zombie grandmothers raises the "ick" factor, while one about a hate crime gone horribly wrong seems to be heading toward a cautionary tale but ultimately comes off as preachy. "Have a Nicey Icee Last Day" is a surprisingly meanspirited revenge tale involving two girls and one guy; "Who Are You Having for Dinner?" is the standout of the bunch, a tongue-in-cheek and teeth-in-neck yarn with an interesting visual style and more than a little bit of humor. Striking a mood reminiscent of the classic EC Comics horror titles, the volume ties the stories together with a clever conceit (the padded paper-over-cover book's design simulates a high school yearbook, and the premise involves the editing team trying to get photos together to go to press). Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

Breaking Up: A Fashion High Graphic Novel
Aimee Friedman and
Christine Norrie. Scholastic/Graphix, $8.99 paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-439-74867-4

Friedman's (South Beach) narrator, Chloe Sacks, is a self-described "aspiring artist, chronic daydreamer, borderline neurotic," and tells the story of her junior year at Georgia O'Keeffe School for the Arts in flashbacks. The volume strikes a sure balance between realistic issues and teenage sarcasm. For instance, the school is nicknamed "Fashion High" because of the ridiculous sartorial standard set by the students. Chloe is distraught to notice that her lifelong best friend, Mackenzie, is becoming distant, shallow and increasingly obsessed with popularity. Two-time Eisner nominee Norrie depicts a hilarious panel for the image of Mackenzie's "nightmare... los[ing] our precarious social footing": the tops-turvy friends are being sucked into a black hole labeled "unpopular!" Chloe befriends nerdy-but-oddly-handsome Adam, despite the damage such a friendship could do to her "popular girl" status. The two become a couple, but Chloe keeps it a secret from Mackenzie and their two other "inner circle" friends, Erika and Isabel. When the trio discovers Chloe's secret, she inadvertently alienates all three friends-as well as Adam. The stakes get higher: Erika deals with a pushy boyfriend who wants sex, Mackenzie's scheming social climbing explosively backfires. In the final chapters, Friedman moves from giggly gossip, instant messages and lattes, to a thoughtful exploration of the difficult time the girls have reconciling their friendships, and learning to accept each other for who they are. For teens going through similar dilemmas, this book will likely be a great source of comfort. Ages 15-up. (Mar.)