Crafty Chloe
More of a storybook than a craft how-to (young crafters can take comfort in the link to a website with instructions for making the crafts depicted), this vignette features a young girl dealing with feelings of inadequacy, peer pressure, and birthday-gift one-upmanship. Chloe isn’t very good at sports, video games, or dance; she excels, however, at making clothes and other crafty pursuits. She fears her homemade gift will never measure up to glamor gal London’s fancy purchased doll, but in true happy-ending fashion, it’s the dress and doll bed Chloe makes that save the day at the birthday party. Pencil-and-digital art in pastel colors render the everygirl drama in an accessible, cartoon style. The girls’ facial expressions are priceless, especially when they face off across paragraphs, London looking scornful on the left and Chloe with an exaggerated blasé shrug on the right. A pleasant girl-centric story ideal for those beginning to make the leap from shorter picture books. Grades 1-3. --Diane Foote