This is the latest book in the Penelope Crumb series. To be honest, I had not heard about this series of books, until I read this book.
This book is about a girl named Penelope Crumb who is in fourth grade. She lives with her mum and her older brother, who she thinks is an alien. Her dad is sadly 'Graveyard dead'. Sometimes she's a little bit unsure of herself, but she has a talent for drawing and she often talks about Leonardo da Vinci.
In this book, Penelope has to learn to barn dance for a competition at school; though we soon find out she is not a very good dancer. She is made to be dance partners with Hugo (Lippy Gordon), the most unpopular boy in school. She does everything to get out of being Hugo's dance partner, including pretending to have warts. Everybody at school gives her the nickname "Wart Girl"! Hugo doesn't even want to partner up with her either! Awkward! As the story unfolds, a friendship between Penelope, Hugo and Lizzie Maple slowly develops, but will it be enough to win the competition?
This brilliant book is all about friendship as we follow Penelope through life at school. The way Shawn K Stout has written the story is believable; it's like being at my school with my friends. Penelope is like any other nine year old that I know. She gets a little bit confused and a little bit grumpy. Really she's just trying to figure everything out.
I feel sorry for Hugo because he sits alone at lunch and nobody wants to go near his sweaty lip. Also I found the part where Hugo gets stuck in the window during the firefighters visit to the school very sad because if that was me I would be very embarrassed. Though I did like the way Penelope stuck up for him, which shows us that she is kind and caring. My favourite part of the book was when Penelope and her square dancing partners won the square dancing competition for 'best attire' because they came together and tried their hardest as a team.
The words used by the author show this is a story based somewhere in the USA (year 4 is called fourth grade), but this does not make it hard to understand what is going on because it could be any 9 year old girl!
I really loved this book because it was very funny in places and made me laugh out loud! I'm going to make sure I read the other books in this series and I think you should too!
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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