Shrinking Violet is Totally Famous

Lou Kuenzler's Shrinking Violet is Totally Famous is a funny adventure for 9 year olds about a girl who shrinks to the size of an apple core whenever she gets too excited.

What happens

Violet Potts has a very small secret. When she gets overexcited her toes tickle, her ears pop and down she goes. Only a couple of people know, and her best friend Nisha is one of them.

So when Nisha bursts into Mo's milkshake café to say Stella Lightfoot is in town, it's a disaster. Stella is the super-daring star of Violet's favourite TV show, all helicopters and ferocious animals. Violet shrinks on the spot and both milkshakes go flying.

What follows is a VERY bad afternoon for someone the size of a key ring. She drops through a hole in Nisha's pocket and lands in the park sandpit. Then a bossy toddler called Rosie takes her home as a doll and gives her a mermaid makeover with glitter glue (and a haircut!).

The escape is the best bit. Violet rides down the stairs inside a Russian doll, like a stunt woman going over a waterfall in a barrel, then borrows a toy beach buggy. Who wouldn't want to try that?

But that spilt milkshake has a cost. A man from the council slips on it, and Mo's café gets shut down. Violet feels terrible, because it's her fault. So she comes up with a plan to save it, and she's going to need Stella Lightfoot's help.

It's told by Violet herself, so you get every panic and every bit of excitement as it happens. It's a bit like chatting to a friend who talks at a hundred miles an hour. Her teenage sister Tiffany is also hilariously useless as a babysitter (she's too busy texting to notice her own sister in a toddler's hand).

This is the third book about Violet. The shrinking is explained as it goes, so it's easy to pick up here too.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, go back to The Incredible Shrinking Girl, where Violet's very first shrink happens in the queue for the scariest roller coaster in the country.