Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One

The sibling duo of Abigail and Jake aka the Great One and the Pain along with their cat Fluzzy narrate the compilation of stories by Judy Blume. In class Jake makes a mistake reading and is so embarrassed he vows never to read out loud again. Abigail argues with a classmate over a story her friend steals from her. Abigail and Jake butt heads and come together in a way all siblings can relate. The stories are fraught with the high emotions of the very young. Blume accurately portrays the actions, thoughts and feelings of the youngsters. She uses a vocabulary suitable for beginning readers. The negative I found was the over usage of he said/she said. It made the prose monotonous and predictable. I listened to the book and cannot comment on the art work. My review and ranking are based solely on the text. Would have given a ranking of 3.5 stars.