MORGAN ON ICE

Aldeen cruises through life like a monster truck: She crashes into everyone and has little concern for how her take-no-prisoners attitude affects people. So when Aldeen invites Morgan to accompany her and her grandmother to Princesses On Ice and his mother says he has to go, he’s less than thrilled.

Immediately, the third-grader starts plotting ways to avoid the skating show; these reach an added level of desperation when his friend Charlie invites him to a monster-truck show that turns out to be at the same time as the dreaded skating show. Morgan attempts a variety of poorly thought-out schemes, including attempting to foist Aldeen’s invitation off on a classmate and trying to convince her that he has a disease that makes him secretly scared of watching skating. Morgan’s dad keeps advising him to “Man up” and deal with his misfortune, but in the end, Aldeen’s grandmother elects to take them to the truck show instead of the skating event, and it turns out to be…boring! Quirky illustrations, (including a funny and inviting cover that makes this an easy sell), simple text, and recognizable, even mildly suspenseful situations, all combine to make this a chuckle-inducing read for those just advancing into chapter books. Morgan’s own ice-skating misadventures further enhance the mix.

An amusing combination of grade school frustrations and slightly screwball responses.