Cody's Secret Admirer

Grade 3-4-In this light, fast-paced novel, Cody Michaels's overactive imagination blows small incidents into memorable events. The nine year old is alternately horrified and intrigued when he receives a mushy valentine from a secret admirer. Pretending to be Double-O Cupid, he begins spying on his female classmates with disastrous results. In the middle of this muddle, he makes a second discovery. The Avanis, future house guests from India, are bringing him a surprise that will "become a member of his family." Cody, now preoccupied by love interests, wildly jumps to the conclusion that he is about to become the victim of an arranged marriage. The tension is quickly and satisfactorily resolved when Mr. Avani gives Cody a pet turtle and a sixth-grade girl tells him that she sent the valentine by mistake. While Cody seems as natural and unintentionally funny as the boy readers met in the earlier two books, his "Top Ten" lists scattered throughout the story have a forced ring to them. However, Duffey successfully demonstrates her intimate knowledge of her audience in her realistic classroom scenes and in her portrayal of third-grade social dynamics. The Valentine's Day preoccupations, preparations, and party are particularly good. Thompson's appealing black-and-white illustrations build on the humor found in the text. While this is not the best book about Cody, it will find a ready audience.
Maggie McEwen, Coffin Elementary School, Brunswick, ME
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 2^-3. In the third funny chapter book about nine-year-old Cody, he is appalled to receive a valentine. It's "gross." Who can his secret admirer be? And what if his parents' friends from India are arranging a surprise marriage for him? Luckily, their surprise turns out to be, not a bride, but a pet turtle. What kids will relate to is Cody's latest hobby of making top 10 lists, from "Top Ten Things You Hate to Hear Your Mother Say" to "Top Ten Things I Love." There is a wonderful immediacy to Cody's loves and hates, caught as he is "in that in-between age between first love and Sesame Street." It's the combination of the cosmic and the trivial that hits home. Hazel Rochman