Sarah's Secret Plan - Pbk

Johns's first book for children introduces a spunky heroine whose parents are perpetually late. Sarah hates being tardy at school on the days her father drives her, and she resents the family's inability to reach the movie theater in time to buy popcorn. So she devises what seems to be a fool-proof plan: she sets every clock in the house ahead 10 minutes. The resourceful child shocks her teacher by arriving on time and happily munches on popcorn after getting to the theater before the film starts. But then the scheme backfires: Sarah has to miss the last 10 minutes of her favorite TV show, is sent out into the rain to wait for the school bus and gets picked up early from a friend's house. So Sarah decides to undo what she has done, bringing this breezily written tale to a pleasing if predictable conclusion. A good deal of the book's humor is rooted in Brunkus's (illustrator of the Junie B. Jones series) polished, whimsically detailed pictures: the curlers fly out of Sarah's mother's hair and coffee spills from her cup as she scoots out the door to work (late of course). Cheery. Ages 3-8. (Feb.)