Sophie Simon Solves Them All (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sophie Simon Solves Them All Deborah Stevenson Graff, Lisa. Sophie Simon Solves Them All; illus. by Jason Beene. Farrar, 2010. [128p.] ISBN 978-0-374-37125-8 $14.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-4. Genius third-grader Sophie can't convince her loving parents, who think their daughter should be average and "well-adjusted," that what she really wants is a graphing calculator to do calculus. Her classmates have similar parental dilemmas: Owen can't make his mother understand that all he wants for his birthday is a bunny and not some striking exotic pet; klutzy Daisy yearns for her parents to let her drop out of ballet; Julia resists her father's desire to make her into a mathlete and aspires toward journalism instead. Can Sophie's brilliance link all these problems together and solve them in one fell swoop? Graff, author of solid, accessible realism in The Thing about Georgie (BCCB 4/07) and Umbrella Summer (BCCB 7/09), here takes a somewhat farcical approach, evident in elements such as the teacher's ever-growing list of absurd rules ("No dropping three things at once"; "No reading books fatter than your head") and the ballerina sit-in at Daisy's recital. Sophisticated touches in the vocabulary (the draconian French ballet teacher is Madame Robespierre, for instance) make the book particularly suited to young Sophie-type overachievers looking for a quick read, but kids of all stripes will recognize the frustration of dealing with parents who think you're someone you're not and admire the quick shuffle that gets all the beleaguered youngsters what they want. Beene's black-and-white illustrations offer polished exaggeration in their character caricature and a nicely against-type portrait of young Sophie. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois