Dear Dad, Love Laurie - Softcover

Pfeffer, Susan Beth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0590416820 ISBN 13: 9780590416825

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks, 1990

Synopsis

Laurie's letters to her divorced father chronicle her year in the sixth grade and her efforts to enter her school's program for the gifted and talented

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-7 Pfeffer has another winner in this upbeat story of a sixth grader adjusting to divorce and to her father's move far away for professional reasons. The book consists of letters which Laurie writes to her dad in the course of a year. She faces other discouraging changes: friends who have new interests and being passed over for the gifted and talented program. Laurie, her parents, and her peers are believable and sympathetic characters, although one aspect does not ring truethe too-sweet relationship between the divorced parents. Pfeffer offers a hopeful message: personal growth occurs even in a less-than-ideal family setting. After a period of self-pity and anger, Laurie edges toward better relations with others. She is able to accept her parents as people with lives of their own. She also takes on adult obligations by observing the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur. Intellectually, Laurie is motivated to do a project which will not only earn her a place in the gifted and talented program, but will also be an introduction to the pleasure of study and accomplishment. Libby K. White, Schenectady County Public Library, N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Once again Pfeffer writes with humor and sensitivity, this time in a novel about sixth-grader Laurie Levine. The entire storyin a structure similar to Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw is cleverly conveyed through the letters Laurie writes to her father following her parents' divorce. Laurie expresses her feelings about the divorce, how she misses her father and how she reacts when both of her parents begin to date other people, including in the balance of the material her hopes for school and her jealousy of her friend Kris. The letters chronicle Laurie's growth through the school year; readers will admire the honesty and determination found in her lively, believable narration. Ages 9-12.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0590416820
• ISBN 13: 9780590416825
• Binding: Paperback