December Secrets
by
Patricia Reilly Giff
Summary: Everyone in Ms. Rooney's class has been given a secret special person to be kind to for the whole month of December. Emily Arrow is stuck with Jill Simon, the class crybaby. Emily decides that she will make Jill happier and thinner.
Evaluation: For this age group I do not think this book would be appropriate since it negatively deals with the issue of girls body image. Throughout most of this book Jill is bullied about her weight by her classmates including her secret pal Emily. While bullying is an issue that children in this target audience do face this book does not do a good job at addressing it. This teaches children that it is ok to make fun of someone just because they are a little on the heavy side and really highlight the more serious issue of female body image, which is not appropriate at this age. There are no positive messages about female body image or bullying until the very end of the book and by that time for an early reader the damage has already been done.
While this is a good early reader as far as words on a page, size of the words, use of pictures in relation to the words, word spacing and difficulty of words, it is a horrible story line and has no redeeming literary qualities. The children in the target age group would learn nothing positive from this book.
I would not recommend this book to anyone!
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