Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, Book 3: Best Friends and Drama Queens Booktalk

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Allie’s back with more rules, mostly because of the new girl in her class who has some rules of her own!

Allie Finkle’s all ready to go back to school after winter break, but things aren’t going quite the way she’d planned them. The biggest change is that she has to leave her desk by Erica and go sit in the back of the room with Patrick and Stuart and Joey, so the new girl, Cheyenne, can sit at her old desk. Allie doesn’t mind sitting with the boys so much—she has brothers and isn’t afraid of them—but she really doesn’t want Cheyenne to have her old desk, especially when she finds out what kind of person Cheyenne is. She’s beautiful, and is wearing the coolest t-shirt and the high-heeled, knee high, lace up boots that Allie’s mother had said were too old for her. Cheyenne doesn’t even act nervous when Mrs. Hunter told her to tell the class about what Canada’s like, because that’s where she’s from. And when she sits down, all of Allie’s friends lean over to talk to her, while Allie’s stuck in the back row with the Terror Triplets, and can’t join in.

Then at recess, when Caroline asks Cheyenne if she wants to play queens with them, she says that madeup games are childish. After lunch, they find out what kinds of games Cheyenne likes to play—kissing games! That means chasing boys till they’re caught, and then Cheyenne kisses them before they can get away. And the first boy they chase is Peter Jacob, the boy Sophia’s had a crush on for ages—and Cheyenne knows it! And when lunch is over, it seems like all the girls in class, except Allie and her friends, are talking about how much fun the kissing game is, and who Cheyenne will kiss next.

By the end of the day, Allie’s got some new rules to add to her rule book— It’s okay to lie if it makes someone else feel better. Friendly people don’t tell other people their games are babyish. A t-shirt that says you’re talented is only good if you are. And— Just because something’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s right or good.

What other rules will Cheyenne inspire?


This booktalk was written by university professor, librarian and booktalking expert Joni Richards Bodart.

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