Read Hello, Mallory free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Ann M. Martin's Hello, Mallory is a warm friendship story for 9 year olds about an eleven-year-old who gets her chance to try out for the Baby-Sitters Club.
Mallory Pike is the oldest of eight (yes, EIGHT, including identical triplet brothers). She has glasses, curly hair and freckles, and she isn't allowed contacts until she's fifteen. Being eleven, she tells us, is a real trial.
She's been minding her brothers and sisters for years. So when the older girls in the club ask her along, she's thrilled and terrified all at once. She even dresses up for her first meeting (nobody else does).
It doesn't go to plan. Kristy decides Mallory has to pass a test, and it's not a fair one. When do you take off a tourniquet? Can you draw the human digestive system? Your reader will be every bit as cross as Mallory is.
Meanwhile there's a new girl in her class. Jessi Ramsey loves ballet and horse stories, knows a joke for every occasion and wears glasses for reading. Mallory has been hoping for a best friend for ages. Could this be her?
It's Mallory telling it, so you're right there with her nerves before the meeting. You feel her cringe when Claudia corrects her in front of the children they're minding, and her quiet delight at finding someone so like her. A couple of the club's notebook entries are in there too (Claudia's spelling is a joy).
It's worth knowing that Jessi is the only black girl in their year, and the book is very open about how some people treat her. At lunch, Mallory's classmates say she doesn't belong, joke about where she must have moved from and make up a name to mock her. A boy flicks rubber bands at the back of her head and the teacher pretends not to see. Mallory does push back at the lunch table, though she finds it hard.
The story clearly wants you to see how unfair it all is. Even so, a child who has heard comments like these may find those scenes upsetting, and they might be worth reading together. A few of the ways people's looks are described feel a bit old-fashioned now too.
Mallory arrives at a club that's already up and running. If your reader wants to see how it all began, start with Kristy's Great Idea. Kristy watches her mum ring round half the town for a sitter and wonders why one phone call couldn't reach several at once.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
7-day free trial. Then £7.99/month.
