I've had a blast reading Jennifer Allison's "Gilda Joyce" series.Now she's started a wonderful elementary series. Her main characters are wonderfully, funny kids. Daniel has just learned that his younger brother Iggy will be moved into his room. The reason is that he broke his crib. Iggy shared a room with his sister Dottie. She doesn’t want Iggy to move out since they’ve been together all their life. Iggy is ecstatic about the move. His older brother knows Iggy will break things that don’t belong to him. Iggy isn’t in Daniels room any time before he climbs onto the top bunk and in a tug of war over one of Daniel’s toys the mother and father come in. Daniel loses his toys to the gobblebox. The gobblebox is a box where toys are placed until the parents feel the kids have earned the back.

We also meet two other characters. Chauncey has been Iggy’s friend for a long time. However, I found him to be rude and obnoxious. He is not allowed to eat candy yet he goes to Daniel’s house and eats as many sweets as he can find, even rummaging through Daniel’s moms purse to get some gum. He is a trouble maker and blames Daniel for things he does, and gets Daniel in trouble.
Daniel's new neighbor Alistair is a strange kid. He collects bugs, can make toys fly and only eats broccoli. Daniel likes him even though he acts weird and they become friends. But, Alistair has a secret. While Daniel and Alistair are supposed to be watching Iggy he gets into Allistair’s backpack and eats some of his bug specimens. This is going to cause more trouble for everyone involved.

Kids are going to love this book. The drawings are charming, the story line carries you along so much that you don’t want to put it down. I could picture kids reading the book and thinking, “yeah that’s just like my brother.” There will be so many ways they will connect with this book. This is only the first book in the series. I am looking forward to reading more. ( )