Your Best Friend, Kate - Softcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- Kate's letters to her best friend Lucy chronicle her family's four-week trip by car from New Jersey to Florida and back, visiting 11 states on the trip. Kate tells about the sights they see and adds a few facts such as state birds and flowers for most places. She reports all of the annoying things that her little brother Brian does, but there is a real sense of caring between the two as well. Kate's last letter is to comfort Brian, who is staying behind in Pennsylvania with Aunt Mag for two weeks--Kate did so last year, and knows how homesick he will be. Kate's letters are convincingly childlike. She reports those things that would impress a child. Brown's illustrations complement the text well. They have a casual, vacation-snapshot feel, and although facial features are limited to dots and lines, emotions are clear. Your Best Friend, Kate will offer young children a good basis for comparing and contrasting with Vera B. Williams' Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea (Greenwillow, 1988) and Dayal Khalsa's My Family Vacation (Potter, 1988). Less of a tour de force than the former and less of a memoir than the latter, Brisson's story will be more familiar to most young readers. --Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.