The Adventures with Barbie series was originally published in the early 90's and has since been reissued in a variety of countries with various reading orders - sometimes under the same names but not always. In Australia, this series was reissued as Barbie Sweethearts and featured covers with Barbie dolls. The series follows Barbie on her every day adventures featuring recurring characters, different careers, new places and friends and some mysteries. Barbie always has a smile and is always willing to lend a hand, making this a perfect series for tween readers.

In Dancing the Night Away, Barbie is asked by her friend Christie to plan a Dance-a-Thon for Children Charities annual fundraiser. But Lynn Madison is not happy with Christie's choice and is determined to cause trouble if she can't be the star of the show. Barbie's roped everyone she knows into helping and everything is going well until her checklist is stolen and things start going wrong. First the food turns up early, she almost forgets to pick up the awards and she twists her ankle while rehearsing. She knows Lynn was the one who took her list and Barbie decides to kill her with kindness to get things back on track.

I didn't hate this book but Lynn annoyed me - the logic behind Lynn's actions was just dumb. If she wanted to be on stage dancing - why didn't she volunteer to do that? And her comment about not wanting to do the hard work while Barbie gets the applause was ridiculous. I'm not sure she understands what being in charge requires because she follows that comment with "If I can't be the star, then why should I do anything?" - maybe because it's a charity event and your job? Maybe because being a star of the show and being in charge are two different things?

Still, Barbie solves the issues with tact and diplomacy. I liked how she gave Lynn an out to hand the list back without confronting her and I thought it was smart to keep Lynn occupied so she couldn't cause any further trouble. And I enjoyed the way she used their food trip to drum up interest in the Dance-a-Thon.

Target audience 4 stars, my rating, 3. ( )