When 12-year old Lucy learns the family pharmacy might close, she decides to attract customers using her preternatural knowledge of make-up application and products. When not giving the homecoming queen lip-gloss advice and booking appointments, Lucy helps her best friend Sunny deal with the many mini-mortifications of a first crush. The squeals, giggles and tiffs between these best buds teetering on adolescence allow readers a glimpse of true tweendom. Boys still seem mysterious, like aliens, and to Lucy they remain more annoying than infatuating. Preteens will enjoy Lucy’s sweet first-person narrative, a disarming combination of innocence and earnestness. She feels sick of adults patronizing her and treating her like a little kid, particularly her flaky mom and no-nonsense grandma. A Going Green grant for local businesses seems a perfect way to make the pharmacy relevant again and prove that she should be taken seriously. Greenwald clearly takes preteens seriously, emphasizing their ardent concern for the environment and desire for change. This refreshing novel successfully delivers an authentic and endearing portrait of the not-quite-teen experience. (Fiction. 9-13)
