STEP FOURTH, MALLORY!

The format in the latest in Friedman’s popular Mallory series follows the well-established pattern. Nine-year-old Mallory is excited about beginning fourth grade. Both Joey, her next-door neighbor, and her best, best, best friend Mary Ann, from her old neighborhood, will be in her class, and Mallory believes this will be the greatest year ever. Things go terribly wrong the first day, however. Their new teacher has a set of rules he expects students to uphold, and in the first five minutes of the first class Mallory breaks one. By the end of the first week she has broken all ten. Worst of all? Mallory and Mary Ann have a crush on the same boy, and he seems to prefer Mary Ann. Mallory’s chatty, first-person narrative will keep readers’ interest as she tries to solve her problems, with mixed results. With the addition of e-mail messages and a touch of romance, this easy-to-read chapter book has a slightly older theme than its predecessors. The book will appeal to fans of Marissa Moss’s Amelia series. (Fiction. 7-11)