A review by miss_alaina
Lanie by Jane Kurtz

4.0

I was obsessed with American Girl as a kid and, now that I'm a librarian, I'm thrilled to see that kids still enjoy these books. The library kids seem to love the more modern stories, so I've been trying to read some of them, too, since they love it when I can talk to them about the books they're reading. I was prepared to hate this book since I'm such a huge fan of the original historical characters, but wow! This is actually a great book and a must-read for children who love animals and nature. I love that Lanie does realistic things that kids can imitate, like making field notes about her backyard, learning about local birds, growing a garden.

These modern American Girl books are drastically different from the ones I read in the mid-90s (when the characters dealt with serious problems like war and slavery, not "my sister colored on my homework"), but I'm still impressed with this addition to the AG lineup.