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Tricycle Press, 1999
$14.95 hardcover ($4.95 paper)
124 pages

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Eleven year old Prudence Brinker -- Chickabiddy Baby to her family - has to keep a summer diary for a school assignment. There is only normal summer stuff to write about but Pru perseveres. She writes about her friends, and her family's trip to the lake, and the mysterious not-quite-love notes that appear in her private hideout, and more. From June to August it's a funny, quietly fascinating, and entirely believable summer.

Well, almost. The grandparents' visit borders on unlikely, but author Emma Kallok gets everything else right. Her skills at both writing and people observation are already impressive, and she should only improve with experience.

Because the most important thing you need to know about Emma Kallok and The Diary of Chickabiddy Baby, her first novel, is that she was ten years old when she wrote it. Her delicate plot is almost as unscripted as real life; she wisely stays within the bounds of what she knows, what any soon-to-be fifth grader might experience. Her writing, too, is unpretentious and natural, and serves to bring Pru quirkily and exuberantly to life.

As long as publication "too soon" doesn't spoil things, Kallok will definitely be an author to watch in the future.

Dust jacket art by G. Brian Karas; used courtesy of Tricycle Press.

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