{"id":611,"date":"2009-10-26T07:51:41","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T11:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=611"},"modified":"2010-12-10T19:36:01","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T23:36:01","slug":"little-sister-is-not-my-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/little-sister-is-not-my-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Sister Is Not My Name!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No, this blog title has nothing to do with me and my relationship with my older siblings!\u00a0 I just finished reading the first book in Sharon M. Draper&#8217;s new early chapter book series about a nine year old girl named Sassy.\u00a0 And the\u00a0title of the first book is:\u00a0 <em>Little Sister Is Not My Name!<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As I was putting NEW stickers on some freshly processed children&#8217;s books the other day, I was intrigued by this book&#8217;s <a title=\"Sassy - Concord Bookshop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.concordbookshop.com\/NASApp\/store\/Product?s=showproduct&amp;isbn=9780545071512\" target=\"_blank\">cover<\/a>.\u00a0 I knew the book had gotten favorable reviews, but the cover just looks a wee bit commercial, so I decided that I&#8217;d best take it home and read it for myself.\u00a0 And while I was at it, I chose a few other younger juvenile books to read, too, since it occurred to me that I&#8217;ve been reading mostly intermediate\/middle school and young adult books, but not much fiction for younger kids.<\/p>\n<p><em>Little Sister <\/em>is a quick, fun read, and I&#8217;m actually very impressed.\u00a0 The cover,\u00a0cheesy though it is, will attract a lot of readers (primarily girls, which is too bad, because boys might enjoy the book too), and once the book is in their hands, I can practically guarantee that they&#8217;ll like it and be searching for the next book in the series.\u00a0 Sassy is a completely genuine child character: with very few exceptions, her voice and actions ring true.\u00a0 In my opinion, a well-portrayed child character is a rare beast, and it&#8217;s refreshing to meet Sassy and realize that if she weren&#8217;t fictional she could easily walk through the door of the library and start chatting with me about her Sassy Sack and boys and her friends and her Grammy.<\/p>\n<p>Draper is an acclaimed teacher (see her official biography <a title=\"Draper Official Biography\" href=\"http:\/\/sharondraper.com\/formal-biography.asp\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> &#8211; it&#8217;s impressive), and logic would say that her experience working with students helped her to create Sassy and her friends.\u00a0 If you know kids and understand them, you&#8217;re more likely to be able to create a fictional kid who walks, talks, and acts like a real kid.<\/p>\n<p>I highly recommend this first book in the Sassy series, and can&#8217;t wait to put it in the hands of a couple of my favorite young library patrons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, this blog title has nothing to do with me and my relationship with my older siblings!\u00a0 I just finished reading the first book in Sharon M. Draper&#8217;s new early chapter book series about a nine year old girl named Sassy.\u00a0 And the\u00a0title of the first book is:\u00a0 Little Sister Is Not My Name!\u00a0 As &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/little-sister-is-not-my-name\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Little Sister Is Not My Name!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-book-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}