BRIANNA BANANA, HELPER OF THE DAY

Self-control doesn’t come easily to Brianna, but maybe a new friend will?

More than anything in this world, Brianna Ross longs to be Helper of the Day in her third grade class. Trouble is…well, trouble. Teased on a regular basis (“Brianna Banana” is the mean nickname other kids give her for being tall and blond), she has great difficulty controlling her emotions, paying attention, and not acting out. She sincerely believes that if she’s Helper of the Day, other kids in her class might play with her. When new transfer student Rumi is named Helper of the Day, however, Brianna finds herself standing up for the quiet, easily overwhelmed girl. With her poor choices and hair-trigger temper, Brianna could give Jack Gantos’ Joey Pigza a run for his money in the self-restraint (or lack thereof) department. Button attempts a tough balancing act: keeping her protagonist sympathetic in spite of her many mistakes and crafting a nuanced, wholly believable character within a relatively short page count. She triumphs: Readers will root for Brianna, while perhaps understanding why she has so few friends. Brianna has distinct spunk and turns of phrase worth noting (after mentioning that her dad left the family and her grandpa died, she says, “In my family the boys are gone, and the girls live on Princess Street”). In Ogawa’s pleasing black-and-white art, Brianna presents as white, while her classmates are diverse.

A flawed but sympathetic character worthy of readers’ love.