Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up (review)

Despite her initial fears about being separated into an all-girl class while her best friend, Eric, is herded off with the boys, Keena Ford finds that she absolutely loves second grade. The course of true love doesn't run any smoother than usual, though: Keena mixes up her date notation and can't bring herself to own up when the teacher fêtes her with a birthday party five months early ("I really, really wanted a piece of that cake"), and she's disloyally intrigued by Eric's claims about his teacher, who ostensibly allows kids to chew gum and makes pudding pie every day. Can her beloved Miss Campbell forgive her for these transgressions? As a narrator, Keena has a touch of Junie B. Jones in her pell-mell approach to life and her tendency to make mistakes that readers will catch before she does, but there's a deeper foundation that's reminiscent of Ann Cameron's Julian, Huey, and Gloria stories (Gloria's Way, BCCB 2/00, et al.). Dynamics are vivid and credible, with Keena believably blind to Eric's anxiety about being left out, and with an old enemy ("I think it started when I might have taken her green crayon") becoming a friend as alliances shift. There's also a nicely realistic depiction of the family wherein both mother and father are seriously involved parents even if they don't live together anymore, and the often annoying older brother offers an offhanded piece of kindness just when it's badly needed (after Keena suffers grounding and humiliation when her real birthday is revealed). Keena is fizzy and enjoyable company, and her adventures will make lively reading aloud or alone. Final illustrations not seen.