Book Review: Beauty and Bernice

What a fun and unique book!  Beauty and Bernice by Nancy Viau follows 12-year-old Bernice, a grungy skater girl with zero social grace.  When Odelia, a real-life princess, and her godmother move into the neighborhood, Bernice can’t help but roll her eyes at this strange girl who wears fancy gowns and a tiara on her head.

Odelia’s godmother insists that she make friends with Bernice, but Bernice is too embarrassed to be seen with a princess.  Odelia flutters around Bernice with a notepad filled with lessons from “Odelia’s Guide to the Social Graces,” making sure that Bernice is always using her manners, making conversation, and using perfect posture.  When one of Odelia’s lessons helps Bernice talk to her skater boy crush, Wyatt, Bernice finds that she could learn a thing or two from Odelia… And soon Odelia finds that she could learn a thing or two from Bernice.

The first thing I thought of as I was reading this book was the Odd Couple.  It was so funny to picture Bernice swatting Odelia away when things got embarrassing, but it was also very heartwarming to see how both girls changed and balanced each other out as their friendship grew.  Two girls from two totally different backgrounds find similarities about each other in more ways than one!

This book is lighthearted and humorous and I would recommend it to 3^rd and 4^th graders or 8-10 year old readers.  It’s a great middle grade book because it focuses mostly on the theme of friendship with a light sprinkle of boy drama. 

Thank you to Schiffer Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this E-ARC.  It is greatly appreciated!

Beauty and Bernice can be pre-ordered here!  It comes out September 28th, 2018.

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