Please Write in This Book

When their teacher leaves a blank journal in the Writers' Corner, encouraging kids to "talk" to one another about anything they like, they start off with brief self-portraits in words and sketches, including bits of facts and nonsense. Lizzie tells her classmates to be nice, but she gets mad when the boys mock her and her friends with lots of talk about poop, snot, and stinky feet. Then a classroom war erupts, and Lizzie and her friend Yoshi hide the journal in the girls' bathroom--where the boys find it. In the end they apologize to one another, and together they write a story. They call it "Invasion of the Journal Snatchers," and even their teacher loves it. Grade-schoolers, boys and girls, will enjoy the slapstick and the farce, whether it's about worms that poop or kids acting crabby; too bad the story perpetuates the stereotype of the librarian who says "Shhh."Amato, Mary is the author of 'Please Write in This Book', published 2007 under ISBN 9780823421381 and ISBN 0823421384.