Vote!: The Complicated Life of Claudia Cristina Cortez

by Diana G Gallagher, Brann Garvey (Illustrator)

Overview

Claudia's seventh-grade class elections. It's the same every year: the same kids run, and the same kids win. Promises are broken, and nobody cares. This year, it's going to be different. Claudia's friend Peter is running for class president. He's smart and honest, but can he win the election? He insists on having a clean campaign, and everyone else is playing dirty!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781434208668
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Series:	Claudia Cristina Cortez
Pages:	88
Sales rank:	454,141
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	400L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Diane G. Gallagher lives in Florida with her husband, Marty Burke, five dogs, three cats, and a cranky parrot. A professional folk musician in the 1970s, Gallagher also wrote songs and dabbled in whimsical fantasy art in the 1980s. She is best known for her hand-colored print series, "Woof: The House Dragon", and she won a Hugo for Best Fan Artist 1988. "The Alien Dark" (TSR1990) was her first published novel. Gallagher has written over 70 titles, including books in the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Charmed", Smallville", and "Star Trek" series.

Table of Contents

Peter please — Seconds anyone — Campaign committee — Stolen slogans — Leak — Blame game — Pander and promise — The big speech — Working weekend — Meet the candidates — Muddy politics — The debate — Advice and action — The big push — P.S.

Editorial Reviews

Claudia volunteers to be campaign manager for her friend Peter who is running for class president. At first, Claudia thinks the campaign is all about making cool posters, but soon learns there are others who will steal their campaign ideas and run a dirty campaign. Claudia and Peter’s campaign committee learns that being a good president is not about being the best athlete or the best looking person in the middle school. Of course, others realize that too, and Peter wins the election. Told in first person narrative, this low level, high interest book would be most appealing to girls. Larger type text and extra space between paragraphs keep this short novel from intimidating struggling readers. Simple illustrations interspersed in the margins of the text will help the reader keep track of the characters while reading. Occasional variations of bold type and other text fonts also assist in holding readers’ attention. This and other books about Claudia would be a nice addition to the library collection. Recommended. -Susan Black, Librarian, Arlee (Montana) Elementary School

Library Media Connection

Gr 5-7

Claudia wants smart, kind Peter to win the election for president of the seventh-grade-class so she steps up as his campaign manager and gets her peers involved in selling him as the best person for the job. They show the other students that bribes, threats, and empty promises are not the way to win this year. This realistic hi/lo book includes some attractive features for the target audience, including introductions to the characters in the opening pages, a variety of fonts, many sections of dialogue, numerous spot cartoon drawings, and short sentences. Teachers will appreciate the brief discussion guide and Facthound Internet links.-Sharon R. Pearce, Longfellow Elementary School, Oak Park, IL

School Library Journal