Book Description
for So Totally Emily Ebers by Lisa Yee
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Since her parents’ divorce, Emily Ebers hasn’t stopped missing her dad and blaming her mom. Her mom is the one who decided she and Emily were moving across the country to California after all. Emily’s longing comes through clearly in a novel written as a series of letters to her dad describing her new life in California. So, too, does her unwillingness to even consider the possibility that her dad might bear some responsibility for her parents’ marriage ending. Emily’s letters reveal her denial through her upbeat, at times painfully funny approach to their relationship. Emily also writes about her developing friendship with a girl named Millicent Min and her burgeoning romance with a boy named Stanford Wong as Yee explores the relationships between and among these three appealing characters first presented in Millicent Min: Girl Genius (Arthur A. Levine / Scholastic, 2003) and then in Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (Arthur A. Levine / Scholastic, 2005) from Emily’s perspective. Yee deftly balances fine humor with keen insight as Emily’s relationship with her dad and with Millicent and Stanford challenge her ability to admit the truth and, ultimately, to offer forgiveness. (Ages 10–14)
CCBC Choices 2008. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2008. Used with permission.