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  • Eliza Bing Is (Not) a Big, Fat Quitter by Carmella Van Vleet
  • Amy Atkinson
Van Vleet, Carmella. Eliza Bing Is (Not) a Big, Fat Quitter. Holiday House, 2014. [176p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-2944-8 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys     R Gr. 2–4.

When local celebrity baker Sweet Caroline offers a summer cake-decorating class at the area park district, Eliza desperately wants to sign up so she and her friend Tony can one day start their own bakery. Her parents are reluctant, though, and eavesdropping on them reveals the reason: Eliza’s habit of quitting. Though she concedes her ADHD may have interfered with her ability to stay with a hobby in the past, her indignation at what she sees as injustice—particularly when her older brother just quit his martial arts class—prompts her to strike a bargain with her parents: she will take her brother’s place in tae kwon do and, if she sticks with it, she can take the cake-decorating class in the fall. Although the path to a yellow belt is lined with mean girl Madison, fights with Tony, and anxieties about starting middle school, not to mention a bruised tailbone, Eliza begins to learn that winners only quit when they’ve won. Van Vleet gives Eliza a compelling voice and winning underdog quality, and she handily works in details about living with ADHD (self-control practices, medication, and what it’s like to be the “weird” kid at school) without making it Eliza’s defining characteristic. Though Eliza isn’t the most original of heroines, her resemblance to classic protagonists such as Ramona isn’t likely to alienate readers. Indeed, Eliza picks up at the age we last saw Ramona; this timing, [End Page 424] coupled with the unresolved tension with her friend Tony, may mean that, like a true martial artist, Eliza will persevere—for another book or two, at least.

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