G
iving the Indie Kidd series a spirited start, this playfully illustrated novel introduces an earnest, energetic British girl who lives with her mother (an assistant manager at an animal rescue center) and a menagerie of pets. On her 10th birthday, Indie is stumped when her teacher instructs her students to write curricula vitae listing three of their talents. Seeking to discover exactly what she is good at, Indie repeatedly stumbles—sometimes with comical results. Her attempt to master hair-wrapping leaves one of her best friends with a bald spot, her stab at talking to animals incites a donkey to chew off a chunk of her
hair and she can't pull off a single trick when she tries to perform magic. Meanwhile, the C.V. she creates for the ugly, drooling dog at her mother's rescue center—“Can sit very
still for ages. Can make his eyeballs look in two different directions at the same time.”—brings no takers. In a kid-pleasing if predictable denouement, Indie adds the seemingly un-adoptable dog to her roster of pets and is lauded in the local paper with the headline, “Indie has a talent for doing good!” Indie and her pals return in Oops, I Lost My Best(est) Friends
, due out the same month. Ages 7-10. (Apr.)
