LIZARD MEETS IVANA THE TERRIBLE

This slice-of-life story concerns a timid girl who becomes friends with an outgoing classmate, a misunderstanding between them, and the lesson that “real friends find ways to make up.” Poor Lizzie Gardener—because her Coast Guard father is overseas, she has to move in with her grandmother and start a new school. Bashful and unassertive, this reticent third grader “was too shy to make a best friend” at the school she used to attend. Now seated between the beastly Brady Brootski who calls her Lizard, and a girl known as Ivana the Terrible, Lizzie knows how a mouse in a trap feels. Gossipy classmates Tiffy and Crystal befriend Lizzie and warn her to stay away from Ivana, rumored to be so tough that “she can turn you to stone with one stare.” Lizzie is happy to comply until her teacher makes Ivana her journal-writing buddy, and Lizzie discovers that she likes her unpopular classmate. The road to friendship, however, is fraught with potholes and Lizzie needs to find the courage to be a stalwart friend. Scott paints a true picture of the ups and downs of classroom life; her plot is slight and the outcome no surprise, but readers will be drawn to the jacket painting and the relaxed narrative style, peppered with humorous journal entries written from the two girls’ perspectives. (Fiction. 7-10)