Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes

Gifford, Peggy. 2008. Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank You Notes. Illustrated by Valorie Fisher.

I loved, loved, loved the first Moxy Maxwell book, Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little. And this one, the second one, has been on my wish list for over eight months. Moxy is a girl after my own heart.

This book opens several months after the close of the first one. It is Christmas vacation, and Moxy Maxwell has plans--big plans, of course--for how she wants to spend her vacation. And guess what...writing thank you notes is NOT on the list. What Moxy is looking forward to most of all is visiting her father in California. Her and her brother Mark are supposed to be spending half their vacation with him. They haven't seen him for three years (or is it two?) and Moxy is ecstatic. The only thing in her way seems to be the fact that she can't bring herself to write twelve thank you notes to her family, friends, and relatives.

Everything I loved about the first book is present in the second. And then some. The completely original and hilarious voice. The wacky chapter titles. The intricate family relationships. Mark's photographs. But this second book deals with a more serious subject matter--the delicate, often tricky, very complex nature of divorced families. The book is funny, yes. But it's also full of heart.

Here is how the book begins, "It was the day after Christmas and Moxy Maxwell had a list of 13 Things to Do Before Tomorrow. Tomorrow she and her twin brother, Mark, were flying to Hollywood to spend the last week of vacation with their father.
Moxy had been looking forward to this trip for, as she put in, "ages and ages"--ever since her mother called her dad and told him that this year he had to take the twins for the last part of Christmas vacation." (1)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews