Judy Moody by Megan McDonald

I don't know about you, but I'm intrigued when the title on a book's cover reads Judy Moody was in a mood. Not a good mood. A bad mood. Why is she in a bad mood? And why does she have that look on her face? Her scowling eyebrow plus that smirking mouth equals mischief, plain an simple.

I know, I know. Never judge a book by it's cover. But the rest of the book doesn't disappoint.

As Judy wakes up on the first day of school, she is indeed in a bad mood. She doesn't want to give up summer, and worst of all, she has no cool summer shirt to wear displaying a cool summer vacation. The first thing she says in the book is, "ROAR!" (How else do you respond when Mom tells you to get up?) However, reminded that she did in fact do one cool thing during the summer, she gets a plain t-shirt and a fat marker and creates her own shirt: "I ATE A SHARK!" complete with a big-mouthed shark with lots of teeth.

The more the reader learns about Judy, the more there is to like. She belongs to the T.P. Club (The T stands for Toad, the P stands for...well, let's just say the P could stand alone.) with her best friend Rocky and Frank Pearl, the boy who eats paste. She collects dead moths, old scabs, fancy toothpicks, designer band-aids, doll body parts, and baseball shaped erasers. She has a brother named Stink and a cat named Mouse and a pet Venus flytrap.

Readers can move quickly to other books of the series, including books about Stink, an activity book, and a mood journal. As Judy would say, "Rare."