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No Comments I Did It Again
In fact, my MO for Terri Libenson’s ‘Emmie & Friends’ series seems to be to finish the one I’ve got checked out right about the time the next one gets published. (Although to be fair, I’m a couple of weeks ahead of the game this time.) I did, however, finish Entirely Emmie on Wednesday night, and despite some misgivings about Joe’s co-starring role, I found myself completely enjoying it. The setting is a celebrate-the-end-of-the-school-year class trip to a camp by a lake; Emmie’s (much) older sister is coming along as a chaperone, and she and Bri are expecting plenty of bestie time.
Except.
For starters, Bri comes down with a miserable cold just before they’re scheduled to leave. And Joe’s parents, who find the flyer at almost the last minute, encourage him to go by heavily implying that the weekend at home will be a veritable chore-fest if he doesn’t. Which then makes the two of them inconveniently buddy-less–together. What starts out as a miserable weekend, however, starts to shift when Emmie and Joe start to really talk to each other. And even though neither one of them would have chosen to be forced out of her/his comfort zone, they both appreciate some of the aftereffects.
To be honest, I was most impressed at how Libenson handled Joe’s inner voice. While I generally can’t STAND people who crack jokes at other people’s expense, Joe’s thought processes and character growth nudged me out of my reader comfort zone, rendering him a sympathetic character in his own right. There is definitely some typical middle school drama as well, but that’s more of a plot device to aid what matters than anything else. Entirely Emmie is, well, entirely worth your time.
In other–sad–news, we lost one of our bunnies yesterday. Marshy–short for Marshmallow, since he was an albino lionhead–was at the outer edge of the life expectancy for outdoor bunnies, and he got lots of love and attention yesterday from the two kiddos who loved him most, but those kiddos–ESPECIALLY my son–will miss and miss him. He was chill enough to hold and hang out with, and despite an unfortunate penchant for nibbling on shoes, he was good natured and accommodating. He served as an emotional support animal for my oldest in early high school and my son for the past several years, and we will not forget him.