Tales From A Not-So-Graceful Ice Princess
2012
- skating
- animal shelters
- contests
- middle schools
- diaries
- juvenile fiction
- popularity
- ice skating
- fiction
- money-making projects for children
The story
When her crush, Brandon, reveals the animal shelter where he volunteers is in danger of being closed, Nikki and her friends enter an ice-skating competition to help raise money, an effort that is compromised by an interfering MacKenzie. Book #4
What it’s like
Bright, cluttered and chatty on the page, this is a diary-style middle-grade novel whose look lives in its typography: loose handwritten-feeling entries, doodles, lists and bold asides that make each page feel like a notebook a girl has been carrying around a school hallway. The voice is breezy and self-deprecating, full of exclamation points, crushes, and small embarrassments set against glossy winter-season imagery of rinks, pastel sweaters and a shelter's cramped kennels. Its pacing is quick and episodic, with short chapters that end on little hooks, and its emotional register is light, warm and comic, the mood of a sunny afternoon with a friend who narrates everything. Following a sweet-natured, slightly clumsy girl learning that friendship and self-belief matter more than being noticed, it offers gentle social friction, a sparring rival and a crush who turns out to be kind. Intensity is minimal: no violence, no gore, nothing frightening, and romance is limited to giggly crushes and hand-holding talk. Suited to young readers aged eight to twelve, reluctant readers, and anyone wanting a cozy, low-stakes read for a rainy afternoon or a comfort reread.
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