Your Friend in Fashion, Abby Shapiro

Axelrod, Amy. (2011). Your friend in fashion, Abby Shapiro. New York: Holiday House. There are just two things 11-year-old Abby wants in 1959: a bra to fit her growing body and a Barbie doll. Since her mother refuses to pay for either one, Abby decides to earn the money for herself. She already spends her free time sketching clothing designs for her best friend's Barbie and an imagined makeover for her teacher, making it natural that she decides to share her designs with someone a little more famous, someone with an eye for fashion. Consequently, the precocious youngster writes Jacqueline Kennedy, the wife of one of the two Massachusetts Senators. Her letters are chatty and describe her excitement about fashion, her worries about her extended family, her home and school, and her curiosity about Jackie's childhood, and they also contain designs for dresses that she imagines Jackie wearing. But Jackie never replies although Abby keeps coming up with designs. During this time, her extended family experiences several changes, brought about by the tension between her parents and by her aunt's bossy nature. As Abby comes to age, she realizes that the adults in her life love her despite the secrets they have kept and the mistakes they have made.

There are so many things happening in this book, which would be a nice companion to Deborah Wiles's Countdown. The author captures a slice of Americana when JFK decided to run for President, as the Civil Rights Movement was just getting started, while the space race was heating up, and when every girl longed to have a Barbie. If I have a criticism of this book, it would be that the author tries to include too many social issues and political events as the book's backdrop without providing motivation for how the characters are involved in those events. There are loose ends about some important characters left hanging while other loose ends are tied up all too neatly and conveniently. Still, this book provides plenty of laugh out loud moments such as the scene in which Abby and her best friend Anna Marie are trying to make over a Barbie to look like Jackie or when Abby tries to purchase her first foundation garment by herself. I loved the chatty, personal nature of the letters Abby writes to Jackie, filled as they are with a child's confidence that this busy adult will find the time to reply. The inclusion of paper dolls created by the author as a young girl add to the book's authentic nature.

Favorite Lines:

“This is so easy. I take a few facts that are true and mix them with a few that aren’t true. My story comes out as smooth as can be. My bowl of lies has no clumps on the bottom like the rubbery ones in Mummy’s Jello-O” (p. 132).

“Mummy leaves the dining room in a huff and goes downstairs. She’s angry about everything. It’s not just about my father anymore. It’s like she’s got a big, roaring bonfire inside her belly and another log gets tossed on the pile each time you annoy her or if she reads something in the newspaper about civil rights” (p. 152).