Epic! Originals is a book imprint line within Andrews McMeel Publishing. This imprint of books is worth mentioning because it nails to the floor how elementary aged kids think. Some of their books skew younger than Diary of a 5th Grade Outlaw. This series of books by Gina Loveless with illustrations by Andrea Bell has its second release, The Friend Thief out now and pull a bit of an Empire Strikes Back on its readers.
Granted, those readers who are the intended audience for The Friend Thief won’t get the Empire reference. For some of them they’ll just know that film was the one that their parents talked about as being the best one and had the big ‘reveal’ about Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. I couldn’t believe that they were brothers either!
I read The Friend Thief at a quicker pace than I did the first book. Perhaps it’s because I knew the characters and how they’d react to elementary aged crisis. Even if you haven’t read the first book it’s easy to step right into the story. It merges new readers into the world of Robin Loxley effortlessly and in a way that elementary school readers will understand.
As one might infer from the lead character’s name, the book is ripe with Robin Hood parallels, albeit geared towards the life of a nine year-old. In the self titled first book from the Diary of a 5th Grade Outlaw series we saw Robin make new friends and finally stand up the school bully.
The Friend Thief puts the personality traits from some of the friends in that book and throws them a 180. Old friends come back into the fray and Nadia, the bully from the first book is showing traits that might just make her not so bad after all. She’s becoming friends with LJ, who is one of Robin’s best friends.
The funny thing is, as those two become friends she realizes that she is changing. What’s worse is that her other friends and spending less time with her and more time with those two. The world is conspiring against her, up is down, down is up and every maniacal scheme Robin comes up with seems to only put more distance between the erstwhile friends.
I could immediately relate to Robin because I was never told that it was my fault as a child. OK, if I was told that something was my fault I don’t recall it. I insisted that everything was conspiring against me and that good things needed to happen to me regardless of my actions or feelings towards others. OK, that last bit might be a bit much, but it’s not far from the exaggerated point of where Robin has her expectations of being-and acting like a friend.
Kids need to know that friends and friendship won’t grow on their own. It’s a two-way street and requires work or some degree of effort from each party. That is what The Friend Thief does so very well. That girl is a friend thief who is taking away my friends from me is what Robin thinks. In reality it’s just that people are changing and sometimes as hard as it is to hear you are the sole source of the problem that’s happening.
The Friend Thief is not preachy. The chapters are printed on bigger than average font that grades three and up should be able to read. Our almost third grader can read the book, but struggles to comprehend the details. In our case he tries to read a handful of pages a night and then recap what he read through questions.
That age will also like this series because it’s a real book. At roughly 210 pages it’s an accomplishment in reading for those younger ages that are learning to read more engaging material. Moreover, The Friend Thief just might make some of them realize how important being a good friend, and a consistent one, really is.
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