Product Description

Carolyn's tips for survival:

Keep your hair too short for ribbons.
Get a great dog.
Avoid girls who wear Mary Janes.
Spy on the neighbors.
Play in the mud.

Carolyn likes to break the rules. To her great surprise, it turns out that's what being a girl is all about.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1148016 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Tomboy Carolyn is thrown for a loop when she hits puberty, in this "sunny, funny look at a girl with a smart mouth and scabby knees," said PW. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Van Draanen's first book has a crackling pace, funny lines, and an iron-willed heroine with a knack for putting herself in the center of all the action. Sixth-grader Carolyn doesn't act like a girl, and doesn't look much like one either, clad in boys clothing and wearing her hair very short. She likes to spy on the neighbors with her two brothers, play stickball, and dig foxholes in the backyard. Of girls who play with dolls and wear too much lace, she has low opinions, and hardly counts herself in the girl camp at all until some unfamiliar feelings surface for her stickball buddy, Charlie. When her baby sister, Nancy, is born, Carolyn decides that being a girl is really okay, now that she has an ally in the family. The era in which the story takes place is never specified, and while Carolyn's voice is contemporary, some of the problems she faces are dated, e.g., having to wear a dress to school and being unable to have her own paper route because she is a girl. Regardless, her irreverent narration is engaging and she's refreshingly astute about family and neighborhood dynamics. Blithely entertaining. (Fiction. 8-11) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"A sunny, funny look at a girl with a smart mouth and scabby knees." (Publishers Weekly )

"Blithely entertaining." (Kirkus Reviews )

Customer Reviews

Great
This was a very good book. She is just like me but has way more fun.
Wedelin Van Draanen should make another book about carolyn.
and like call it "being a girl isnt so bad" or "i thought beign a girl wanst so bad until now"

Carolyn herself is smart and fairly likable,
Being a girl is no fun. Girls have to wear dresses to school and can't do entertaining things, like have their own paper route. Being a girl means you're not supposed to climb on the roof, or dig foxholes in the yard, or spy on the neighbors. And you're definitely not supposed to like your new baby sister, or have a crush on a friend who's normally nothing more than a stickball buddy.

Right?

Twelve-year-old Carolyn has never thought of herself as a girl. She prefers to keep her hair short and wants nothing to do with dresses, ruffles, or anything that remotely could be considered "girly." But when her baby sister Nancy is born, Carolyn's thoughts toward girls begin to change as she sees that she's not alone in her family anymore.

Lots of gross descriptions and hilarious adventures keep this book moving, though in the end Carolyn disappointingly fails to balance her tomboy nature with the "girly" feelings she experiences. Furthermore, the lack of a timeline is a source of confusion. Though the reader never knows for certain the year in which the book takes place, it seems as if many of Carolyn's anecdotes, such as having to wear dresses to school that aren't mentioned as part of a uniform or not being able to run her own paper route, are problems not usually faced by girls today.

Carolyn herself is smart and fairly likable, but not as inspiring as van Draanen's other major girl hero, Sammy Keyes.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Kraft Webber

a relatable story