Mariah Delany's Author-of-the-Month Club

by Sheila Greenwald

Houghton Mifflin, 1990
$4.95 paper
124 pages

"Some people loved reading books. Some people loved meeting authors. But more than anything, Mariah loved making things happen."

And her new idea is -- what else? -- an Author-of-the-Month club. She will invite authors to come and talk about their books to the club members. It's a perfect idea and Mariah doesn't waste any time putting it into action. After a rocky first meeting where she tries to pass off a classmate as a Mystery Writer (as yet unpublished), the club really gets going with Joe Butts, who writes books about Outlaw Joe. To top that success Mariah decides that the next guest will be T.M. Obermeyer, author of a beloved children's series and still popular after fifty years. The difficulty will be convincing T.M. Obermeyer to agree to come -- or so Mariah thinks!

Two things in particular mark the success of Sheila Greenwald's book. From beginning to end Mariah Delany's Author-of-the-Month Club is outrageously funny. The reader may see, long before Mariah herself, how her best laid plans will go astray, but this does not make her escalating disasters any less amusing.

Greenwald's other success is her astute understanding of a child's sense of power, or lack of power. "For a moment Mariah felt like the pendulum on an old clock. Bong, she was powerful, important, and practically famous. Bong, she was unprepared, nearly failing, and about to be in big trouble with her parents." This theme resonates throughout the book. In fact, Mariah's club, even at the end, is not a disaster, and its spectacular "failure" is really the fault of someone else (who will remain nameless here for the sake of surprise). On the other hand, Mariah is responsible for the state of her schoolwork, a responsibility she needs to understand and accept.

Mariah first appeared in The Mariah Delany Lending Library Disaster in 1977; she was a coolly calculating entrepreneur in that book. Thirteen years later in 1990, Greenwald continued Mariah's harebrained escapades with Mariah Delany's Author-of-the-Month Club and Mariah's character has warmed a great deal. Both books are currently back in print from Houghton Mifflin.

About Mariah Delany:

• The Mariah Delany Lending Library Disaster. HMCo, 1977
• Mariah Delany's Author-of-the-Month Club. HMCo, 1990

Reviewed by Wendy Morris. © 2000 by Wendy Morris.

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