SUNNY HOLIDAY

Unhappy that January is so dark and boring, fourth-grader Sunny hopes to invent a new holiday—a Kids Day halfway between Christmas and Valentine’s Day—and to get the mayor to proclaim it. The main attraction in this optimistic tale is not the premise—which rather unbelievably seems about to happen by its end—but Sunny herself, a never-give-up kind of kid determined to “bloom like a dandelion,” in her father's words. But her father is serving time. Living in an apartment on the wrong side of a blighted river, and attending a school that is “on probation,” Sunny’s life could seem pretty grim. Still, she and her hardworking mother count ten reasons to be grateful every night, her teacher thinks positively, and though Riverton is not the best of all possible worlds, it seems likely that Sunny and her family will, step-by-step, achieve their dreams. A first-person narrative, full of high hopes and sensible advice, this feel-good story slips down easily. (Fiction. 8-10)