Review – The Top Secret Diary of Celie Valentine: Friendship Over
For her tenth birthday, Celie’s dad gives her a punching bag and a journal hoping they’ll help her whenever she’s struggling with her emotions. Little did he know how soon she’d need that journal. Celia’s best friend, Lula, was supposed to help her celebrate her birthday by watching movies and eating popcorn and sundaes but, at the last minute, Lula cancels out and Celia can’t figure out why. Lula seems to have moved on but Celie is lost without her best friend. When they’re referred to “Friendship Forward,” Celia dreads it but also hopes it will help.
At the same time, Celie’s grandmother is not doing well. She’s become forgetful and is behaving oddly. Celie’s mom goes to check on her. Celie loves her grandmother and is worried about what will happen to her.
Celie shares her fears, loneliness, and frustrations in her new journal and finds a way to cope with all the changes going on around her.
The Top-Secret Diary of Celie Valentine: Friendship Over, by Julie Sternberg is a delightful book that middle grade readers (especially girls) are sure to love the way I did. They’ll be able to relate to Celie and her problems and will enjoy the journal format the book is written in. Besides Celie’s entries, it includes notes and cute drawings by Johanna Wright, making it a quick, fun read.
Celie’s parents are present but her mom is busy dealing with her own issues and her dad is busy with work, leaving Celie to mostly cope with her problems on her own. She finds her journal and working through her feelings really helps. Since this is for young readers, things turn out well in the end.
I will link this up to Booking Mama’s Saturday feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site tomorrow.
Sounds nice 🙂
I love books written in a journal format – I think it adds a really cute touch!
Kathy, this really sounds darling. I think I’d enjoy it a lot. Enjoy your weekend!
this one sounds super cute!
I think the punching bag is a great idea. 🙂
I thought this was a really cute book and I liked that it tackled some relevant issues for today’s tweens.
I like the sound of this one, especially that it mentions a grandmother who is forgetful and behaving oddly. We need more books for children that address dementia. It’s becoming more and more of a reality for children.