The Horn Book Guide

YOUNGER FICTION

Sternberg, Julie

Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie

122 pp. | Abrams/Amulet | March, 2011 | Trade ISBN 978-0-8109-8424-0 $14.95

(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Matthew Cordell. Eight-year-old Eleanor is bereft when her babysitter moves away; Eleanor's new babysitter sensitively gives her room to grieve. Sternberg uses short sentences spaced on the pages in very short lines, like poetry, and keeps the twenty-seven chapters very brief. The first-person narration and the details of Eleanor's emotional journey will draw readers in, while Cordell's line drawings add humor.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2011