Book Review: Moxy Maxwelll Does Not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Funny situations and basically good characters

Cons: A few of the chapters were too short

The Bottom Line:

Procrastinating?

This is a pleasant way to

Avoid something else

I Loved Watching Moxie Maxwell Procrastinate

Okay, I'll admit it.  I am a procrastinator.  I find doing what I need to do extremely hard while doing what I want to do extremely easy.  For that reason, I took the recommendation of Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little to heart and checked it out of the library.  Yes, the book is meant for kids, but I found it very entertaining anyway.

Moxy Maxwell has had all summer to read Stuart Little.  There's going to be a quiz on it tomorrow, the first day of school.  But has Moxy read the book?  Of course not.  She's been too busy reading what she has chosen and doing other fun things.  Now Moxy needs to get it read today before she is part of a swimming show tonight.  And she plans to, too.  Just as soon as she cleans her room and comes up with a way to pay for college.  Will she ever get it read?

This book was an absolute hoot.  I saw too much of myself in Moxy's attempts to get out of reading the book.  This was especially true when she decided cleaning her room was more fun than reading the book.  And the results of her next great brainstorm must be read to be fully appreciated.

Probably because I am a procrastinator at heart, I identified with Moxy right off the bat.  She may only be about to start fourth grade, but she is a likable character with one exception.  I didn't appreciate the way she took advantage of her younger sister and a neighborhood friend.  Hopefully, that will be dealt with in later books.  On the other hand, I appreciated the way her mother handled the overall situation.  She was an authority figure while still being fair to other people involved.  The rest of the characters are fine but are there more to serve the story and therefore are only partially developed.

The book is only 92 pages long and includes illustrations in the form of black and white photos supposedly taken by Moxy's twin brother Mark.  Those photos add much to the humor of the book, especially the captions.  I found it a very fast read, but I'm sure it will take the early elementary target age a little longer to get through.

My only true complaint about the book is the occasional short chapter.  Most of the chapters were fine, but occasionally one was only two or three sentences.  A couple times, the chapter was one word while the chapter title was much longer than that.  I could tell it was designed to be funny, but I found it distracting.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little was a funny book well worth reading.  I definitely plan to read the sequel soon.  Assuming I don't put it off for some other book that catches my interest, that is.