MARTY McGUIRE, by Kate Messner

Order in hardcover from: Local Bookseller | Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Order in paperback from: Local Bookseller | Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Ages 7 to 10
Scholastic

• A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Selection

Meet Marty McGuire!

Marty would rather spend recess catching frogs in the pond than playing dress-up with the other girls in third grade. So when her teacher casts Marty as the princess in the class play, Marty’s absolutely, positively sure that there’s been a huge mistake—but after a special lesson in the art of improvisation, Marty comes up with her own plan to improve the play. Maybe a princess in muddy sneakers can live happily ever after, after all!

Kirkus Reviews:
"Messner gets all the details of third grade right: the social chasm between the girls who want to be like the older kids and the ones who are still little girls, the Mad Minutes for memorizing arithmetic facts, the silly classroom-control devices teachers use and the energy students of this age put into projects like class plays. Floca’s black-and-white sketches are filled with movement and emotion and are frequent enough to help new chapter-book readers keep up with this longer text. Believable and endearing characters in a realistic elementary-school setting will be just the thing for fans of Clementine and Ramona." See the full review here.

A Fuse #8 Production:
Finding great early chapter books can be an enormous chore. Now Marty makes my job as a children’s librarian that much easier…. The fact that Messner manages to create three-dimensional characters with as few words as she does is remarkable. She also is awfully good at voice. From page one you are drawn to Marty…. Full credit to illustrator Brian Floca for his work on this book as well.... In this particular book Floca’s images provide a perfect complement to the action. Marty has to be appropriately female if not feminine. You have to look at her and know that she’s a girl, while at the same time avoiding the standard long eyelashes some artists give their female characters when they want to advertise their sex. Floca knows how to do that, and knows too how to pick out just the right scenes for illustration. The kid intimidated by extra long novels and who needs some images to help them through will be grateful for Mr. Floca’s work time and again…. There’s nothing girly about this fun and funny story that’s easy to talk up. Sell the fact that Marty has to play a princess to the princess lovers and her adoration of science, nature, and slimy critters to the rest of the kids. You’ll end up with a whole slew of children ready and willing to become Marty fans. Elizabeth Bird. Full review here.