Best Friends and Drama Queens (Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #3)

Cabot, Meg. Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: Best Friends and Drama Queens. Scholastic, 2009. Tr. $15.99 ISBN 978-0-545-04043-3.

What’s it about?
When Allie comes back to school after winter break, she discovers she is no longer the new girl--there is a new girl Cheyenne, from Canada, who turns fourth grade into a comical boy/girl drama!  

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Not so long ago, Allie Finkle was the new girl at Pine Heights Elementary. Now a girl all the way from Canada is the new kid in town. Allie wants to make her feel welcome, but feels that Mrs. Hunter is asking a bit too much of her when she asks Allie to switch her seat to make room for the new girl. She plans to seat the new girl, Cheyenne, next to Allie’s friend Erica and place Allie in the back with Rosemary (who previously bullied Allie, but then became friends) and the rowdiest boys in the class.  Allie wants to please her favorite teacher, so she says yes. Allie and her friends are nice kids, so when they see Cheyenne all alone at recess, they invite her to play their favorite game. Cheyenne rudely replies that since they are in fourth grade, they are too old to play “babyish” games of pretend. Instead, she introduces the kissing game to the fourth grade. Then she insists that all the fourth graders pair up and start “going together.” Allie isn’t ready for this, but nor is she is ready to be the laughingstock of the fourth grade, with her new nickname “Big Baby Finkle.”

In the third book of the Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series, Allie is confronted with peer pressure and different type of bullying from what she faced in The New Girl. Her new classmate is pushing herself and her classmates into growing up. Kissing and going out are not usually high on the list of a fourth grader’s priorities, but they are high on Cheyenne’s list. She influences her peers to discard everything she thinks is “babyish,” and pushes them to do things most of them are not ready for, and don’t yet understand. Young tweens are confronted by this constantly, by the media and their peers, and it is refreshing to see that Allie remains a hold out. This isn’t easy for her to do, though. She is ridiculed, especially when she ends up being the only girl besides Rosemary to not “go out” with a boy, and ends up so upset that she shuts herself in a closet and bawls.  Allie is not a mindless conformist, but her feelings are as fragile as any other child’s. Hand this book to younger tween girls, especially those navigating the perilous waters of friendship, cliques, bullying and the pressure to grow up too soon.    

Series information:
#1 Moving Day
#2 The New Girl
#3 Best Friends and Drama Queens
#4 Stage Fright
#5 Glitter Girls & the Great Fake Out
#6 Blast from the Past

Read alikes:
Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series

Paula Danizger’s
Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and the Fudge series

For a slightly older audience: Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

For a slightly younger audience: Pennypacker’s Clementine series and Park’s Junie B. Jones series

Reading level: 5th grade

Interest level: Grades 3-5

Genre: Humor, Friendship Fiction, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Subjects: Friendship, cliques, maturity, popularity, rules

Characters:

Allie Finkle—the nine-year-old protagonist with a penchant for rules

Caroline—Allie’s best friend—the smartest girl in fourth grade

Sophie—Allie’s best friend—pretty and in love with “Prince Peter” a.k.a Peter Jacobs

Erica—Allie’s best friend and next-door neighbor—a spirited gymnast

Jay—Allie’s uncle, who is studying poetry in college

Kevin—Allie’s youngest brother, obsessed with pirates

Mark—Allie’s younger brother, obsessed with dirt bikes, bugs and sports

Mrs. Hunter—Allie’s teacher

Rosemary—Allie’s tough classmate, and foe-turned-friend of Allie  

Cheyenne—a boy-obsessed drama queen, who has little tolerance for girls who act like “babies”

The Clique: Trendy and One Dimensional

 The Clique by Lisi Harrison, 2004. New York: Little Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316701297

What’s it about?

Massie Block, the leader of The Clique at her exclusive private school, has it all—beauty, popularity, wealth. . .  And she wants to keep it that way.

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12-year-old archetypal mean girl Massie Block is the Queen Bee of The Clique at Octavian Country Day School (OCD), a private girls school in Westchester New York.  Most students are the offspring of the ultra-rich. Claire Lyons, the daughter of one of Massie’s father’s friends is not; her family is staying in the Block guesthouse while they get situated. Claire is ridiculed by Massie from day 1 because her clothes are not expensive. Massie is so threatened by Claire’s existence that she constantly belittles her, sends snide text messages to her friends about her, and devises cruel pranks.  Matters get worse when Claire’s new friend Layne’s brother, Chris Abely, turns out to be Massie’s obsession. Massie schemes to take Layne away as a friend to get closer to Chris, while Claire begins to act uncharacteristically mean herself. She sneaks into Massie’s room and pretends to be her while messaging Massie’s friends Dylan, Alicia and Kristen, who are manipulated into turning on Massie. This depiction of junior high cattiness redeems itself a smidge when Massie and Claire bond at a party—because they are hiding from their embarrassing parents.

This book is trendy, meaning that although it is popular now, it will be quickly dated. There is very little to like about this predictable plot and even less to like about the characters, save for Claire Lyons.  With the other characters, the reader may get glimpses of humanity, but mostly, the Clique members are grating, selfish little brats. The characters are pretty one-dimensional, although Massie seemed to show an inkling of ability to change at the end of the book.  Escapist fiction like this is transitory, and not likely to stay in print for more than 10-15 years—or until the next big series hits the shelves. What makes it appealing, I think, is that it demands very little from the reader. It’s sheer entertainment. Some people wanted nothing more than diversion from the books they choose. Reading a book like this is not hard work, nor is it a hard sell, thanks to good branding, marketing and packaging.  If nothing else, these books have hooked many otherwise reluctant readers into recreational reading.  

This is not a book that keeps me up at night, but I wanted to find out why this series is so popular. Most adults I know roll their eyes at the mere mention of these books, but only handful have actually read them. It bothers me when people criticize books they’ve never read. I know they hate the idea of the book, but I’d hardly trust a review of something when the reviewer admits they haven’t done their homework. I suspected The Clique was a trendy, shallow, forgettable book about rich, bratty kids, and my suspicions were confirmed.

Genre label:  Contemporary realistic fiction, chick-lit, friendship fiction (although this book is more about how not to treat your friends)

 Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Ages 10-14

Read-alikes: The Clique series has been said to be A Gossip Girl read-alike for a slightly younger crowd. Other similar titles include the Secrets of my Hollywood Life series by Jen Calonita, the A-List series by Zoey Dean, Private by Kate Brian, and Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez.

Related TV and film: Mean Girls is film that is strikingly similar to The Clique—Mean Girl Regina is Massie, and Claire is Cady. Although Mean Girls is by no means deep, it is far better than The Clique. Fans of The Clique will also enjoy the CW’s Gossip Girl and 90210 (although, in my opinion, these shows are inappropriate for  the age group targeted by The Clique series).  An older show that reminds me of The Clique is The O.C.    

Subjects/themes: Popularity, cliques, wealth, social classes, friendship, bullying

Awards: 2005 Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers (YALSA)

Series information:

#2 Best Friends for Never (2004)

#3 Revenge of the Wannabees (2005)

#4 Invasion of the Boy Snatchers (2005)

#5 The Pretty Committee Strikes Back (2006)

#6 Dial L for Loser (2006)

#7 It’s Not Easy Being Mean (2007)

#8 Sealed with a Diss (2007)

#9 Bratfest at Tiffany’s (2008)

#10 P.S. I Loathe You (2009)

#11 Boys Are Us (2009)

#12 The Clique: Charmed and Dangerous (2009)

#13 These Boots Were Made for Stalking (2010)

#14 My Little Phony (2010)

#15 A Tale of Two Pretties (2011)

Related series:

 The Clique Summer Collection:

#1 Massie (2008)

#2 Dylan (2008)

#3 Alicia (2008)

#4 Kristen (2008)

#5 Claire (2008)

Character name/descriptions:

Massie Block—the Queen Bee of The Clique

Kristen Gregory—a smart girl with a sharp tongue who is desperate to hide the fact that she is a scholarship student

Alicia Rivera—beautiful and jealous of Massie’s role in The Clique

Dylan Marvil—Massie’s yes-man

Claire Lyons—Comes from a normal middle-class family in Florida, making her a Clique outcast. Claire is staying in Massie’s parent’s guesthouse while her parents get settled.  

Chris Abely—the object of Massie’s affection