Maxine in the Middle

From Publishers Weekly It isn't easy being in the middle. Hand-me-down clothing, last year's Halloween costume, and missing all the special privileges that seem to go with being oldest or youngest leaves middle-child Maxine feeling left out and unloved. Christmas dinner is the last straw. Rosalie, the oldest, gets a drumstick, and Sammy gets the other one because he is the youngest. Maxine is left out--again. When she takes up residence in the backyard tree house, it isn't long before Rosalie and Sammy begin to miss her. Games that were fun for three turn boring when there are only two. The two lonely siblings plan a party to entice Maxine back into the family. Sammy and Rosalie decorate Maxine's ice cream with a cherry and Mom serves doughnut holes with peanut butter and jelly to show that middle things are sometimes best. This tender tale dealing with the woes of the middle child is sensitively written in an unassuming, nonjudgmental manner. Ages 4-up. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 2-- Maxine, the middle rabbit, is caught between her two siblings. She wears her older sister's hand-me down dresses, and has to share her crayons with little brother, Sammy. After a sequence of misadventures in which she is short-changed because of her middle-child status, Maxine disappears up a tree on a snowy winter's night. She thereby makes her point, and the family celebrates with a party, games, and "middle food"--doughnut holes and peanut butter and jelly without bread. This mildly entertaining picture book just misses the mark. Many children will be slightly baffled by what all the fuss is about, since Maxine's problems could be solved simply with a new school dress, a clever Halloween costume, and/or a new box of crayons. Although Keller's rabbit family is engaging in these energetic and colorful cartoon-like illustrations, the text is flat and predictable, lacking suspense and surprise. Rabbit sibling rivalry is handled with more subtlety by Wells in Morris' Disappearing Bag (Dial, 1978). Compared to a book which brought readers the ultimate in a frustrated and misunderstood child, Steig's Spinky Sulks (Farrar, 1988), Maxine's defection from her family seems an overreaction. This is only a "fair to middlin" middle-child story. --Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NYCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.