Annie B., Made for TV
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
For every kid who's ever come in second place, this is a middle grade story about chasing your dreams.
Eleven-year-old Annie Brown is used to being on the losing end of comparisons to her almost-always best friend Savannah. Savannah is MVP of the track team, has straight As, and, predictably, wins the most coveted school spirit award on the last day of 5th grade. Fortunately, Annie does have one very specialized skill.
Inspired by As Seen on TV commercials, Annie likes to invent products and write clever sales pitches to go along with them. So when an opportunity arises to audition for a local web show called The Cat's Meow, Annie knows her future is set. She's going to wow those producers with her fabulous writing and made-for-TV announcer voice.
Of course, things don't happen quite according to plan, and soon Annie is worried about losing both the opportunity she's been training for her whole life, and her best friend.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On the last day of fifth grade, when her best friend Savannah wins every award, Annie muses, "the only thing I'm best at is being the friend of someone who is always the best at everything." The engagingly impulsive narrator sells herself short: when it comes to imagination and creative wordplay, Annie has no match. Her passion is writing faux TV commercials, touting devices of her own invention, leading her chipper writer father to dub her a "wrinventor"). Featuring amusing alliteration, the ads that constantly pop into Annie's head and out of her mouth include the "Zippity Zoom," a time machine that erases mortifying moments (of which she has many). The girl's fanciful free association unleashes a stream of thoughts and observations and a mercurial flux of emotions, especially when Savannah becomes besties with another classmate and beats Annie out for the coveted role of announcer in a school production. But Dixon (Maurice the Unbeastly) brings her debut middle grade novel to a reassuring close, as Annie is assigned a role that lets her find her voice, lose her bitterness, and announce perhaps her most useful invention ever: the "Friendship Fixer." Ages 8 12.
