Penelope Crumb is Mad at the Moon

Gr 3–5—In this latest smartly written account of what it feels like to be a tween, Penelope Crumb is facing the music. Literally. Her fourth-grade gym class is being paired with (shudder) fifth graders during a unit on square dancing. Turns out, square dancing doesn't come easily to Penelope. And, showing up to the first day of lessons dressed as an elephant for animal day—on the wrong day—doesn't help win Penelope any friends with the fifth grade girls, ruled by the snarly Nancy Jo. Paired with Hugo "Lippy" Gordon (nicknamed such because of his perpetually sweaty upper lip), Penelope struggles with insecurities and her strong need to fix the situation. Turning to her beloved Grandpa Felix for advice, he advises her to sing to the moon, like he does, when he has a problem. Penelope ponders about the moon often, especially its other side that she can never glimpse. She wonders what the moon is really like, as she realizes that everyone really has two sides to them—the one that everyone on the outside can see, and the hidden side that we share only with those we love the most and trust. As she is thinking, Penelope realizes that "maybe, just maybe, the way to show Nancy Jo and everybody the whole me is to tell them what they don't know about me, what they can't see." And that, she finds out, is almost as hard to do as square dancing. Stout's series about this tween's worries, insecurities, quirkiness and wit deserves a space in library collections looking for precocious, independent girl characters who might not be perfect but are something else: realistic.—Lisa Kropp, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY