Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie

"We sat there together feeling awful.
Then mom said, "Should we make something special for breakfast?... How about pickle juice on a cookie?"  
And I had to smile.
Because that was just ridiculous." 

Eleanor is not happy.  Bibi, her babysitter and best friend, is moving away to Florida.  Natalie, her new babysitter, just isn't the same.  Her other close friend is across the country spending the summer with her grandmother.  And on top of it all, it's August and the next school year is looming over Eleanor.  What will third grade be like?  This was a bad August, as "bad as the black parts of a banana."

Julie Sternberg's Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie, released March 1st, 2011 by Amulet Books, tells the story of one little girl's adventure of learning special things about friendship, herself, and the bittersweet process of growing up.  Along the way, Eleanor learns how to get along with difficult people and how stealing is never worth the bad feeling you get afterward.  She even finds that, although no one can fill Bibi's place, Natalie can be quite an incredible person if Eleanor will give her a chance.

Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie is a perfect book for readers who need the challenge of shorter chapters but a lively script.  Matthew Cordell's black and white cartoons are simple but winsome, and even bring a chuckle here and there.  Though the story line starts off rather sad, it ends on a positive note and represents the valuable lesson that things do not always happen the way we want them to, but the unexpected ways turn out in the end to be best.  Amazing how that is, huh?

What's your favorite memory with a babysitter?