Ava and Pip: A book review by Pixelbeard the Librarian

Full disclosure- I don't understand girls. I have wonderful relationships, professional and personal with many wonderful women. I have been married for nearly 10 years. I love my mommy and I have chosen to spend my professional life in industries that are predominately staffed by women (elementary education/librarian...duh). But I never had a close relationship with a girl growing up. I have one brother and I now have two sons. I have a nephew and a sister-in-law, but she doesn't count because, again, she's grown up. Because I've never had a little girl in my life, I find myself trying to understand them better by reading fictional stories about them. As strange as that may sound, I've found a gem by Carol Weston called Ava and Pip.
Carol Weston has been the author of 13 books for children and has been the columnist responsible for the "Dear Carol" advice column in Girls' Life magazine since the first issue in 1994. She also has a howdini site and YouTube channel called Girl Talk With Carol where she dispenses advice to children and adults alike. This expertise is obvious in the lessons, themes, and plot threads that weave throughout this book. Ava and Pip is more than just a story about two sisters. It is a story about thinking your actions through. It is a story about accepting help from others while also enabling yourself to be a better person. It is a story about learning from your mistakes and understanding that your words and actions have consequences that you must answer for. All of these devices are wrapped up together within a very believable setting populated by characters who, for some, may seem pretentious and overly-intellectual at first, become very likable throughout the course of the story.


One of the strengths of this novel is the Dear Diary device used by the first person narrator (Ava). Sure, nowadays in the Dear Dork Diary of a Wimpy Kid era this device has grown a tad overused and cliche. However, in reading those books, I think we can agree that the focus is not entirely on deep character development, but laughs. I think that Carol Weston has used the diary device to is maximum effectiveness. In this case, the Diary not only relays plot details and moves the story, it does what it is intended to do. Ava's diary gives an intimate portrait of her personality and how it changes daily. It also gives her the opportunity to play with language (She's an aspiring writer), and reveal to us the troubles of being an extrovert.

Speaking of extroverts, that is something that I think we all come to expect from the juvenile fiction novel, especially about two siblings. It's a format that is a classic as Ramona and Beezus. Fudge and Peter. The older sister, Pip is painfully shy. Shy to the point where her classmates believe her to be snobbish and rude. She doesn't speak to anyone outside of her family, and she rarely smiles. At home she is temperamental and acts childish at times. The book tells us that she's a preemie baby, and that because of that, she has had a delay in both physical growth and social skills. The opposite is true for Ava, the fearless extrovert. She is outgoing and creative. She has a way with words and experiments with palindromes and alliteration throughout the book. While the exterior shows that she is happy and all is well, the reader is invited to see that within, she struggles. She struggles with loving her sister and being frustrated by her all at the same time. Even though she is the extrovert, she struggles with all the attention her big sister gets. She says she feels invisible. She is wonderfully flawed. She is happy when Pip begins to improve herself, but jealous because Pip begins to get even more attention by the encouraging adults around her.

I finished this book in two days. It's a very manageable length for most middle grade readers at 206 pages. As I stated before, Ava and her family can come off a bit pretentious (her dad is a playwright and is REreading Ulysses by James Joyce. Yuck.) with all of their word games, palindromes, and classic literature, they remain just as odd as the rest of us. They may be intellectuals and they may be a tad pompous with their wordplay, but they're human.

Here's a bonus list of Palindromes (spelled the same forward and backward) from the book.
AVA
PIP
BOB
ELLE
HANNAH
WAS IT A CAT I SAW
NO MELON NO LEMON
EVIL OLIVE
REPAPER
DESSERTS I STRESSED
DOG DOO? GOOD GOD!
A NUT FOR A JAR OF TUNA
PARTY BOOBY TRAP
REWARD DRAWER
NOT A BANANA BATON
DO NINE MEN INTERPRET? NINE MEN I NOD!
MAY A MOODY BABY DOOM A YAM
LONELY TYLENOL
O GERONIMO NO MINOR EGO
SENILE FELINES
NOW I SEE BEES I WON

If you're REALLY into palindromes, check out the Weird Al Yankovic song "BOB"