We read couple of disastrous books about the fictional life of grade school children….. I was in half mind to withdraw the girls from school, post kindergarten….That is when we stumbled across Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry.

I thumbed through the book and quickly digested that the book was about a quirky little girl in second grade. Gooney Bird who tells tall tales, has an ‘interesting’ fashion sense and has an exceptionally high level of confidence. At first it reminded me of Pippi Longstockings, but Lois Lowry does manage to differentiate this very Pippi-like character, well at least in my mind. While Pippi made me a little sad, I did not have this lump in my throat and a heavy heart when I read Gooney Bird. Pippi leaves you wondering if her claim that she has super human strength and that she can bake a 100 dozen cookies in an hour are true. But Gooney Bird assures that all her stories are 100% real, though her stories are ‘HOW GOONEY BIRD CAME TO THE TOWN OF WATERTOWER, USA FROM CHINA ON A FLYING CARPET’, ‘HOW GOONEY BIRD’S BELOVED PET CAT, CATMAN, GOT CONSUMED BY A COW’, ‘HOW SHE GOT LATE FOR SCHOOL BECAUSE SHE WAS DIRECTING THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA’.

And yes, all of Gooney’s stories are true. For those of you asking me are flying carpets true? can cows eat cats? can a second grader conduct an orchestra? All I can say is, pick a book and find out for yourself.

I loved Gooney because of her confidence, her curiosity to be in the middle of things, her genuine effort to help her friends and her ability to transform and inspire even the shiest child in the classroom. Also through Gooney Bird, Lois Lowry tells her readers how to write a story! She talks about the components of a story – how to choose a title, how to keep the audience interested, when to add ‘suddenly’ and give a twist in the story, descriptions etc. She also talk about how to tell a true story full of facts and numbers without boring the audience, how to write a fiction based on real historical characters, ambiguous endings which open up different possibilities and such. Creative writing 101 !

What endeared Gooney Bird to Mieja was Gooney’s fashion sense. With her three pony tails, cowboy boots on pajama pants, velvet coats, fashion scarfs etc, Gooney and Mieja are soul sisters. She is also thinking deeply about emotions. When ever I read, ‘she slumped her shoulders’ or ‘he scowled’, she asks me to act out slumping shoulders or scowling and she is processing the information.

Chula adores Gooney Bird because of her stories. I can see that Chula can’t get enough of them. She is inspired and wants to write her own stories and look up dictionaries (Yes! That is the current passion! If there is a word she does not understand she looks it up in webster, the old school way. )

Yay to Gooney Bird and we are sad that we have only one more Gooney bird book that we haven’t read 🙁

Yay to Lois Lowry for her faith and respect in young people and her ability to simplify information without being condescending.