Product Description

Everybody’s a star, a brilliant creation.
The trouble is finding the right constellation!

Ellie McSnelly and Carrie O’Toole, the winning pair of friends from The Brand New Kid, are back in a new adventure. Ellie and Carrie decide to try out for the school team in their favorite sport, soccer. But when only one of the girls is selected, the inseparable pair faces a challenge(what do you say when your best friend is terribly disappointed?

But while some disappointments can’t be avoided, Carrie learns (with some help from her mother and her old friend Lazlo) that while she may not be good at everything, she has undiscovered talents waiting to bloom, if she has the courage to try something new.

For every reader who has ever set his or her heart on joining a sports team, getting a part in the school play, or winning a class election, and been let down, Katie Couric’s reassuring and inspiring story gives a charming lesson in confidence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #591765 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-19
• Released on: 2004-10-19
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 10.31" h x .31" w x 8.38" l, .63 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

Amazon.ca
Lively and inspirational, Katie Couric's sophomore picture book, reunites Ellie McSnelly and Carriet O'Toole, friends from her successful first book, The Brand New Kid. Once again, Couric's tale deals with the aches and pains of growing up, and in The Blue Ribbon Day, she encourages kids to deal positively with disappointment. Carrie doesn't make the soccer team with Ellie, but with some reassuring words from mom, "We're all good at something, you'll have your time to shine," she makes a new start, and ends up placing first in the school science fair.

Told in fun, jazzy rhymes that help mitigate Carrie's disappointment and foretell a happy ending, Couric's snappy, upbeat text is perfectly matched by Caldecott winner Marjorie Priceman's vibrant illustrations. Charming, engaging, and brimming with positivity, parents and kids alike will enjoy this reassuring tale. --Daphne Durham

Amazon.com's The Significant Seven
Katie Couric answers the seven questions we ask every author.

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?

A: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?

A: Encyclopedia Britannica
Any Motown compilation
To Kill a Mockingbird

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?

A: I told my mom that I didn't break one of the bedposts of her four-post bed during a pillow fight with my brother, but I eventually fessed up because the guilt was killing me!!!.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.

A: In the morning, on a patio with lots of flowers and birds chirping. A comfortable wicker chair. Sunshine, low humidity and a great cup of coffee.

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?

A: "Perky no more."

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?

A: Thomas Jefferson or Eleanor Roosevelt

Q: If you could have one superpower what would it be?

A: The power to cure serious illnesses.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2 - Couric and Priceman return to the scene of The Brand New Kid (Doubleday, 2000) for another look at a common school problem, this time learning to face disappointment. Light verse tells of soccer tryouts at Brookhaven School. Ellie McSnelly is fabulous, but Carrie O'Toole is not asked to join the team. She goes home feeling blue and cries to her mom, who hugs her and says, "Everybody's a star, a brilliant creation,/the trouble is finding the right constellation!" The warm, energetic watercolor illustrations of kids at work and at play complement the story well and help to move it along. If the ending is a little pat - Carrie and Lazlo (the new kid of the earlier title) find their talent - the book's good humor carries the day. - Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

KATIE COURIC has been a coanchor of NBC News’s Today since 1991, and in that position she has covered a variety of national and international events and fascinating people. She is also a contributing anchor for the newsmagazine Dateline NBC. Couric has received a number of prestigious awards, including six Emmys and a George Foster Peabody Award for her series “Confronting Colon Cancer,” a subject for which she is a major spokesperson and advocate. A native of Arlington, Virginia, she lives in New York with her two daughters.

MARJORIE PRICEMAN is an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books. Her work includes Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, a Caldecott Honor book; Emeline at the Circus, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book; How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, an ALA Notable Book and Reading Rainbow Featured Selection; It’s Me, Marva; Princess Picky; and My Nine Lives by Clio. She lives in Pennsylvania.