ENTERTAINMENT REALM

Title: Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out
Author: Meg Cabot
ISBN: 978-0545040471
Pages: 208
Publisher: Scholastic Press (March 16, 2010)
Category: Children’s
Reading Level: 8-12
Review source: Meg Cabot
Rating: 4.5/5

Being friends with Erica was very good training in how to deal with teenagers. Also how not to act when I become one. Because Missy was really moody. Also rude. At least most of the time. She was being nice to us today, though, because she wanted our help deciding what to wear to the Little Miss Majorette Baton Twirling Twirltacular.

I adore the Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series by Meg Cabot. Allie Finkle serves as a fantastic role model for young girls. She’s independent-minded, spirited, a great friend, keeps her own book of rules to follow and does not care all that much about what others think of her or her strange ways (like not eating any red food). In Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out, Allie gets excited because her parents are going away and her Uncle Jay will watch her and her younger brother Kevin.

Having a bachelor uncle take care of you for a weekend—even with his super pretty, highly responsible girlfriend looking in on you from time to time—is practically like being an orphan. Everyone knows this. When I got back to school and told people about it, word got around fast.
Allie knows she’ll have fun with Uncle Jay and she plans to attend the regional Twirltactular baton competition with her group of best friends. Instead, her mom informs her that she must attend the birthday party of a mean girl: Brittany Hauser from her old school. Brittany always teases Allie about her rules and can be truly mean to her. Allie finds out that for the party the girls will be taken by limousine to a funky store called Glitterati where the girls will dress in cool outfits and get pictures taken, have lunch at The Cheescake Factory and spend the night at a hotel. Allie makes up a little white lie to Erica and her other friends that she must attend this party and cannot go to the Twirltacular. But once Allie enters the limo, things turn for her and just get worse. Brittany relentlessly picks on her and Allie spends her entire time wishing she were with her true friends. So what is someone who wants to be an actress slash veterinarian to do? Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out is a wonderful book for third graders and up. It teaches them about friendship, individuality, honesty and being real in only the fun and page-turning way that Meg Cabot can write about young girls.