Bitty's Halloween Surprise

Bitty's Halloween Surprise

Betty does not join the other Bugleberries in their excited preparations for Halloween because she is worried about her sick cat Bitty. From School Library Journal Grade 1-3 This series is much too sweet for the taste of discriminating readers. In each book, the Bugleberries, a group of eight neighborhood friends plus a dog and cat, are faced with contrived circumstances to which they respond with tailored perfection. The illustrations are colorful, but filled with stereotypes. All of the girls wear dresses, except Jingle, the tomboy, who wears a jogging suit. It is difficult to differentiate one Bugleberry from the other, as they all resemble Cabbage Patch dolls. The names of the characters are as saccharine as the stories: Dolly, Lolly, Toony, Rosie, Jingle, Betty, Bitty, Bo, Baby, and Skip. Bitty's Halloween Surprise is an overdramatized story of how Betty cares for her cat, Bitty, when Bitty cuts her paw. The subject of Play It Again, Rosie! is stage fright, but a healthy means of dealing with that fear is not presented. Sweet Hearts for Dolly relates how Dolly is punished for playing with her mother's new hat without permission. The story becomes unrealistic when other Bugleberries offer to share her punishment. Toony and the Midnight Monster touches upon insecurity about a first sleepover. Dumping all of these very real childhood occurrences and emotions into a series of stories containing too-good-to-be-true characters functioning in exaggerated situations does not provide children with realistic role models. Jennifer Smith, Northern Kentucky University, Highland HeightsCopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.