Plot Summary:  12 year old Lucy spends a lot of her time helping her mother and grandmother out at the family owned Old Mill Pharmacy.  But times are tough for small mom and pop businesses, and she often overhears their conversations about having to sell their house to make ends meet and keep the pharmacy going.  Determined to show them that she is responsible and can contribute, she comes up with ideas to help bring people into the store, including beauty tips and makeovers and a relaxation room.  It isn’t till she joins the Earth Club at school with her best friend that she finds out about the Going Green grant for small businesses and with the help of her sister and a few friends, that she shows her mother and grandmother that she really does have a head for business.

Critical Analysis:  This is a very sweet and optimistic book.  In between the worries about paying bills and having the electricity turned off, Lucy spends her time with her best friend, Sunny, as she is in the throes of her first crush, and even realizes that there might be someone she’s interested in as well.

The contrast between the seriousness of the business problems and Lucy’s attempts to help are one of the strengths of the plot, things are bad, but Lucy is determined, no matter that most grown ups think a twelve year old can’t really do much.  There is a similar contrast between the female characters in the story.  Her grandmother is a serious no nonsense woman, while her mother seems to maybe not always want to be the grown up.  There are a lot of themes running throughout this book, and Lucy is what makes them work.  It is nice to see the author feels like Lucy does, 12 year old middle school students can make a difference!  I think tween girls will be attracted to this book with its great cover and story about a plucky girl.  I do wonder whether many tweens out there will have ever been to a pharmacy such as this one?  I can only hope that oesn’t detract from their enjoyment of this earnest story.

Connections:

To the going green, eco-business movement and ideas.  Maybe all tweens don’t have a family business to save but saving the planet one person at a time is a good start.

Review Excerpts:

Publisher’s Weekly:  “Displaying a lively familiarity with the topics of makeup, makeovers and adolescent angst, Greenwald makes a bright debut with this timely story.” Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Reviews:  “Preteens will enjoy Lucy’s sweet first-person narrative, a disarming combination of innocence and earnestness.”