Lucy Rose: Big on Plans

by Katy Kelly Narrated by Tara Sands

Overview

I'm Lucy Rose, and here's the thing about this summer: I am big on fun and big on plans. I am desperate to make a lanyard keychain, and Jonique is feeling the same about potholders. Plus I have to get rid of 78 or more squirrels that are climbing all over Madam and Pop's apricot tree and taking bites out of the puny fruits and flinging them to the ground which is maddening to Madam who wants to make them into jam. The apricots, not the squirrels. Plus I have to figure out what to do about the absolute pest who is named Ashley and is making Parks & Rec not so much fun. And even though I don't want to think about it, I need to come up with a way to stop my parents' separation from turning into a divorce.

Here is the thing about that: All these things are an extremely lot to get done in one summer.

Lucy Rose is back with big plans and big fun in an all-new book about-who else? Her!

Editorial Reviews

What do you do when squirrels raid your apricot tree? If you're Lucy Rose, you blast Broadway show tunes ("scary to squirrels") or create "rain" with the garden hose and-oops!-flood the basement. Spunky and precocious, this 8-year-old is much more than the sum of her antics, though. Her brief diary entries offer bittersweet, utterly believable insights into life in a new city, rocky friendships, and her parents' looming divorce. (ages 8 to 12)
Child magazine's Best Children's Book Awards 2005

Publishers Weekly

In this second book about Lucy Rose (who "has a truly original perspective," according to PW's starred review of the debut title), one can only imagine her plans for the 92 days of summer that stretch before her. Ages 9-12. (Feb.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-4-Irrepressible Lucy Rose returns in this second book, which is set during the summer between third and fourth grade. She is full of plans-to write in her journal, make a lanyard key chain at Parks & Rec., protect her grandmother's apricots from squirrels, and, most importantly, have a birthday adventure with her father. Life is not all fun and games for Lucy, however. Her parents have been separated for a year, and she begins to fear that this means divorce. Also, a new girl in the neighborhood seems to go out of her way to be unpleasant. Lucy's summer does turn out to be quite full of adventure and she deals with it all in her usual exuberant and cheerful style. She has the dreaded talk with both her mother and father, and learns that yes, there is going to be a divorce, but that it will not affect their love for her. Lucy relates all this and more in her lively diary entries. She is an older version of Junie B. Jones and narrates the story in the same breathless, conversational style. The adults in her life are warm and supportive, and there is never any doubt that they treasure the unique Lucy Rose.-Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Armed with a journal as red as her yippee-yi-yo cowgirl boots, loquacious Lucy Rose's number one plan is to write about her never boring life. Lucy is energetic and positive, but her life is a realistic blend of fun and challenges. Kelly has created a likable girl with a depth that resounds in the diary, evinces Lucy's true self and mirrors her world. Her observations are keener, revealing more than she understands. Each word opens and exposes Lucy's life and character: her joy as she sings show tunes for an elderly audience in a nursing home; her tenacity as she works on a craft at Parks and Rec.; her creativity as she tries to save her grandparents' apricots from the take-a-bite and spit-it-out squirrels; and her hope as she tries to influence her separated parents to stay together. This latter comes through the strongest; it's her priority, so she pleads in her heart and tries to derail a divorce and effect a reconciliation. The ache is palpable in what she writes and leaves unsaid. Continuing what she started in Lucy Rose: Here's the Thing About Me (2004), Kelly offers rollicking fun with genuine heartache, preparation for the real world. (Fiction. 8-9)

From the Publisher

"Spunky and precocious, this 8-year-old is much more than the sum of her antics."—Child Magazine

"Girls ready to graduate from Barbara Park's bestselling Junie B. Jones series . . . will welcome frank, funny Lucy Rose."—People

"This genuine girl and her amicable family provide another palindrome for Lucy [Rose's] collection. This book is 'top spot!' "—Booklist

"Wow! Readers are going to love that Lucy Rose . . . and want more. It's the perfect read after Junie B.!"
—Patricia Reilly Giff, author of the Kids of the Polk Street School books

FEB/MAR 06 - AudioFile

Summer stretches ahead, and Lucy Rose is ready. Tara Sands captures Lucy’s determined and urgent first-person point of view in delivering Lucy's every thought and plan as she shares art activities at the playground, navigates summer friendships, wages battle with squirrels who would like to eat her grandparents’ apricots, counts down to her birthday, and goes on a special outing with her dad. Sands is a convincing, invincible, and egocentric charmer. Tenderly she helps Lucy acknowledge the one thing she would like most to plan--the reconciliation of her parents. Fans of Junie B. Jones or Judy Moody will find a compatriot in Lucy Rose. A.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169117967
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/14/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Lucy Rose: Big on Plans

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By Katy Kelly

Random House

Katy Kelly
All right reserved.
ISBN: 030720717X

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Chapter One

JUNE

June 1
92 is a lot of days. That is how many we have from the end of 3rd grade which was yesterday until the beginning of 4th grade which is on September 1. I know it is 92 days because I counted them on my Shiralee's Beauty Spot calendar. My grandmother who is named Glamma and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, sent it to me in the mail in a big brown envelope that said Lucy Rose Reilly, Queen of Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C., and also had sparkling rose stickers on it. Anybody who is not an absolute infant could tell that I am not a queen, but Glamma likes to act royally and so do I. She got the calendar for free because Shiralee is her sister and also the owner of the Beauty Spot. It came with a card that said: "Dear Lucy Rose, Put your plans on this. Love, Glam. P.S. I already marked one V.I.D. That means Very Important Date."
I wrote a thank-you note that instant because my other grandmother, that is also named Lucy Rose only I call her Madam, says that whenever I get a present I have to write a letter right away that very day if I'm going to have any manners at all. I pay attention to that recommendation because Madam is one who knows an extremely lot about living plus she is the writer of a newspaper column that tells people what to do if they have the kind of kids who won't behave.
Here's what I said: "Dear Glamma. Thank you! I needed a calendar like mad because one thing I am big on is plans even though at this minute I only have 3. Love, Lucy Rose."
One of those plans is to write down what happens in my almost never boring life in this journal that my grandfather who is called Pop gave me for an end-of-school present which I seriously needed because I already filled up the 2 books he gave me last year. When I got this one I said, "Yippee-yi-yo, cowgirl! This book is a beaut."
And it is because it has a swirl design that's the same as on my cowgirl boots. Plus it's red and they are too.
Here is what Pop said to me: "A beaut for a beaut."
My second plan is to go to Parks & Rec with my greatest friend who is Jonique McBee, and make a lanyard key chain out of Gimp for my mom's birthday that's on July 13 while Jonique makes a pot holder out of stretchy circle things for her mother only she is making hers just for love because Mrs. McBee's birthday doesn't come until January. I do not want to make a pot holder because I have done it before and most of the time just when you are getting finished with the weaving, it pops off of the pokey plastic thing and you can't get it back on no matter what you try. Plus I have never seen one of those pot holders that is not ugly but I am not telling that to Jonique because that would be rude which is one thing I am not.
I wrote PARKS & REC OPENS on the square of Monday, June the 8th, which is the Beauty Spot month for getting Carefree Hair which I already have. July is for Permanent Curls which are another thing I got automatically when I was born. August is when you're supposed to Get Romantic Hair, which I don't have and don't want. It's also where I found giant letters that say: "LUCY ROSE'S 9th BIRTHDAY ADVENTURE WITH DAD!"
That is my top V.I.D. for the whole summer.

June 2
Jonique and I are feeling desperate for it to be June 8. For now, we are 2 girls waiting, mostly at my grandparents' house. I spend a lot of my days and some of my nights at Madam and Pop's because it's 3 blocks away from my house and because my mom has to go to her job which is being an artist at a TV station and because I can't stay with my dad on account of he lives in Ann Arbor, which is where I lived before we got a separation last summer. Staying at Madam and Pop's house is A-OK because it's usually a pretty hilarious place to be.
My mom, who has the name of Lily, agrees with that because she lived there for her whole childhood with her sisters and brother who are all grown-ups now and live far away. My Aunt Marguerite lives so far away her house is in Japan.
Once I asked Pop, "Are you and Madam rich?"
And he said, "Rich in kids."
"My mom and dad are not because I'm the only one they've got," I said.
One extremely excellent thing about my grandparents' house is that there are lots of rooms plus lots of porches and Pop thinks it's fine for kids to climb out the bathroom window and walk across the breezeway roof to pick apricots which is our third big plan once they are ripe. My mom says she gets queasy thinking about it but Pop says not one body has fallen yet and Madam says she needs the apricots.
Another thing about their house is it's old like you can't believe. The ceilings are made of metal called tin that have patterns on them. In my room on my tin ceiling there is a big fan that makes it very breezy and refreshing. My regular room has red walls and a pink dotty bedspread and a mirror that I love like anything that is covered with jewels that are fake but look real and I made it with my mom and not from a kit, either.
The only not-so-hot thing about staying at my grandparents' is that Madam does not believe in cable TV even if it's the kind that is appropriate for kids and she does believe in health so she is big on soybean foods which are not the best tasting but she is also big on desserts which is pleasing to me and to Jonique.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Excerpted from Lucy Rose: Big on Plans by Katy Kelly Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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