Module 7: Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls

Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: The New Girl by Meg Cabot

Book Cover Image:

Book Summary:

Allie Finkle has a diary full of rules to deal with any problem that might come her way, and she’ll need all them with the family’s recent move.  Allie is set to attend Pine Heights Elementary, and having already made friends with a few neighborhood girls, it should be a fairly smooth transition.  Things get complicated quickly though when your little brother insists on wearing his pirate costume to school, your leggings have been misplaced in move so you wear jeans underneath your skirt, and you unknowingly offend Rosemary, the school bully.  The adults and kids in Allie’s life give her advice on how to deal with her bully problem; this advice runs the range from report Rosemary to the teacher to teaching Allie the correct way to throw a punch.  Allie sorts through the advice and creates a few new rules to help her successfully navigate being the new girl in school.           

APA Reference of Book:

Cabot, M. (2008). Allie Finkle’s rules for girls: The new girl. New York: Scholastic Press. 

Impressions:

Between make-believe games of queens versus evil warlords and fashion do’s and don’ts Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: The New Girl provides a realistic look at conflicting family personalities and bullying at the elementary school level.  Allie automatically rules out what she knows will be her mother’s advice- report the bullying to a teacher- because that will make things worse.  Her father’s and uncle’s advice on psyching a bully out and how to throw a punch is also thankfully discarded.  The janitor’s observation that maybe Rosemary feels left out by the girls is a little after-school-special, but not necessarily beyond belief.  Rosemary and Allie don’t become new best friends, but tensions do cool.  The book’s gimmick of revolving around Allie’s rules can grate after repeatedly hearing “That’s a rule,” but the rules themselves provide a lot of humor, like It’s not polite to tell someone their advice stinks and Ask old people what to do because they know everything. All in all, Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls will appeal to most elementary age girls and gives some good advice and rules to follow along the way.  

Professional Review:

Language Arts

“Do you remember how scary your first day of school was? Imagine entering a new school for the first time, as the new girl on the block. You have just entered the world of Allie Finkle, the star of Meg Cabot's latest book series. Allie creates rules for herself to cope with her new situation- a situation that involves several bizarre events on her very first day: eating popcorn for breakfast, wearing skirts and pants at the same time, and walking with a brother who is wearing his Halloween costume (even though it isn't Halloween). However, the biggest disaster of the day is meeting the school bully, Rosemary. The New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diary series, Meg Cabot, describes how hard it is to be the new girl in school. No one would expect a fourth-grader's life to be so complicated! Readers of all ages will want to find out how Allie Finkle survives in her new school while still abiding by her own rules.”

Wee, J. S. (2009, May). [Review of the book Allie Finkle’s rules for girls: The new girl, by M. Cabot].  Language Arts, (86)5, 405.

Library Uses:

Elementary School Library

Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls: The New Girl is a perfect book to build a girl-centered chapter book display around.  It’s humorous and gives female readers the nudge they may need to tackle longer chapter books without being overwhelmed.  If the book will be used a class novel, the librarian can have an initial discussion with students about advice they’ve heard or received on dealing with bullies.  It can then be hinted that this chapter book has some rules and advice they’ve probably never heard before.  As a teaser, the librarian can provide a poster size copy of some of Allie's famous rules for the classroom.