Amelia y El Viaje Mas Largo del Mundo

Grade 2-5. Amelia creates a travel notebook about a family car trip back to California to see Nadia, her best friend since kindergarten, stopping at the Grand Canyon and Yosemite on the way. Amid complaints about big sister, Cleo, Amelia ponders how much her friend has changed in the last year by drawing one picture of Nadia as she remembers her, and one picture of a bald Nadia, labeled with handwritten questions regarding her current hair length. As in the previous books about Amelia, the adorable diagrams that illustrate the child’s witty observations will be pored over by readers. The diapers she draws for a mule as a means of keeping the Grand Canyon trails clean are a riot. Her descriptions of the scenery create a sense of being there. When the family stops at the site of Manzanar, the girl draws a barbed-wire fence with a speech bubble saying simply, I’m mad. The story climaxes with the long-awaited reunion with Nadia. Sweet reminiscences of Amelia’s Notebook (Tricycle, 1995) show the girls wearing matching friendship necklaces and doing the experiments from a science kit Nadia promised to save until Amelia’s first visit. This book will delight long-time fans and draw new ones. Once again, Moss proves that journal writing is great fun.