Judy Moody Was in a Mood. (Judy Moody, #1). Megan McDonald. Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press (Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada), 2010. 152 pp., pbk., $7.00. ISBN 978-0-7636-4849-7. Note: Judy Moody Star-Studded Collection. ISBN 978-0-7636-4714-8. Contains Volumes 1-3. $21.00. Judy Moody Uber-Awesome Collection. ISBN 978-0-7636-5411-5. Contains Volumes 1-9. $54.00. Grades 1-4 / Ages 6-9. Review by Todd Kyle. *** /4

excerpt:

Judy Moody did not want to give up summer. She did not feel like brushing her hair every day. She did not feel like memorizing spelling words. And she did not want to sit next to Frank Pearl, who ate paste, in class.

Judy Moody was in a mood.

Not a good mood. A bad mood. A mad-face mood. Even the smell of her new Grouchy pencils could not get her out of bed.

The first of the now decade-old Judy Moody series, Judy Moody Was in a Mood introduces readers to Judy as she enters third grade. Worried that her new classroom won't have all the things she enjoyed last year, Judy is soon swept up in the excitement of her first assignment, making and presenting a Me collage. Along the way, she learns that Frank Pearl is actually a lot of fun as the pieces of who she is fall into place on the collage.

      Although short on plot, Judy Moody Was in a Mood is an apt introduction to McDonald's pitch-perfect take on the obsessions of a school-age child, from being repulsed by the legend of Frank's paste-eating, to constantly talking about her heroine (first female doctor Elizabeth Blackwell) to the all-encompassing importance of her Me collage project, especially when it threatens to become derailed by her father's failure to show up on time at her school with the project. Judy's moods, indignant sense of injustice, and redeeming likeability will be familiar to any child of either gender (not to mention their parents).            

Recommended.

Todd Kyle is the CEO of the Newmarket Public Library in Ontario.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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