Mallory vs. Max (Mallory Series #3)

by Laurie B. Friedman, Tamara Schmitz (Illustrator)

Overview

Spunky, eight-year-old Mallory McDonald is very unhappy when her parents decide to get her older brother Max a dog. Why would her parents agree to such a thing? Dogs are smelly and bark and chew on things. Plus, they already have a perfectly good cat, Cheeseburger. When they finally get the puppy, it’s worse than Mallory imagined. Everyone loves Champ and he and Max are getting all of the attention. Poor Mallory—now everyone’s mad at her. What should she do?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467733670
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Series:	Laurie B. Friedman's Mallory Series , #3
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	164
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

As an illustrator, Tamara Schmitz is well known to the many elementary-grade fans of Laurie Friedman's Mallory chapter books. Tamara grew up one of six children in the small town of Carey, Ohio. She graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design, and spent her early career as an art director in advertising, teaching art, and illustrating greeting cards. Schmitz addresses a topic close to her own heart in her original self-illustrated picture book Standing on My Own Two Feet: A Child's Affirmation of Love in the Midst of Divorce. Sitting at her desk for too many hours, however, drives Tamara crazy. So in her free time she works on getting her third degree black belt in Taekwondo. Tamara resides in Cincinnati with her husband, two children, and stepson.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-4-Mallory McDonald, age 8U plus one month, returns. She is angry because her brother gets a dog, taking all the attention away from her and her cat, Cheeseburger, and she tries everything to regain her spot in the limelight. The relationships with old friend Mary Ann and new friend Joey are somewhat tested, but the focus is on Mallory and Max. When she is responsible for the puppy running away, she comes to realize that Champ is okay and that it's her own selfishness that is causing the problem. Schmitz's expressive cartoon illustrations and the large typeface make the book appealing to beginning chapter-book readers. For fans of Barbara Park's "Junie B. Jones" series (Random) and Megan McDonald's "Judy Moody" books (Candlewick), this selection is right on target.-Sharon R. Pearce, Chippewa Elementary School, Bensenville, IL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Punctuated by pointed family discussions on attitude correction and the importance of team play, this unsubtle sibling-tiff tale should please fans of Junie B. Jones and similar whiny fare. In a mix of wordy first-person narrative and recapitulative letters to now-distant friend Mary Ann, going-on-nine Mallory details why she has her shorts in a twist over big brother Max's new puppy Champ-her reasons centering around a loss of parental attention to her and her cat Cheeseburger. Max is no paragon of patience himself, but both (of course) ultimately come around, and Mallory even closes with a recipe for dog biscuits, plus a glimpse of the new pet scrapbook she's making. Printed in widely spaced lines of type and illustrated with plenty of black-and-white wash cartoons, Mallory's diatribe (her third so far) should draw, if not excite, fledgling chapter-book readers. (Fiction. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews