Gr 5-8-The very with-it musings of Annabel, trying to figure out how to relate to a recently acquired "bazillion" step- and half-siblings with more on the way, are very cheerily portrayed by Caitlin Greer. Her rendition of a near-teen girl comes out perfectly voiced as she reads Rachel Cohn's novel (S&S, 2003). Providing an Australian accent for the down under set of steps proves a challenge, since those parts are quite large, especially the key same-age step Lucy. Greer doesn't miss a beat reading those characters, but the accent doesn't always come off perfectly. The preteen listeners who will find this cheerful and realistic book appealing aren't likely to notice and will appreciate the local color provided in the attempt. This story makes completely obvious the child's desire to be the one and only center of both parents' lives. But it allows the development of a more mature and accepting viewpoint as Annabel realizes that her adored father is a happier, more effectual person in his Sydney home, and that her Australian steps also have their difficulties with this new family arrangement. This character growth happens just in time for Annabel to discover that she will soon have a new set of steps when her mother remarries! This story convincingly portrays the feelings and attitudes of people trying to adjust to new family circumstances. A short contents note on the case tells what chapters are covered on each tape side, a feature that is helpful for coordinating book and tape. This is a fine choice for reluctant as well as more accomplished readers.-Jane P. Fenn, Corning-Painted Post West High School, Painted Post NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Intermediate, Middle School) Following authors such as Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (in her Alice books) and Rachel Vail (in the Friendship Ring), Cohn here zeroes in on a clearly demarcated audience--preteens who like to read about girls just like them and who wanna be teenagers, like, tomorrow. Twelve-year-old (but ""going on thirteen with a vengeance"") Annabel Schubert has a family you need a chart to keep track of: her parents have each married other people, and ""the Steps are the bazillion stepbrothers, stepsisters, and half siblings my parents keep laying on me."" Her father--the way-cool Annabel calls him Jack--has moved to Sydney with his new Australian wife. As the book opens, Annabel is reluctantly on her way to meet his ready-made family, all of whom she resents for ""stealing"" Jack, but her same-age stepsister Lucy most of all. That Annabel and Lucy will eventually become close friends (""sisters!"") and that Annabel will become reconciled to the Steps is never in doubt; but the journey there is packed with humorous incident, life lessons learned, Australian travel tidbits, and a litany of preteen-girl touchstones--self-image, friendships, pop culture, crushes, and the all-important details of physical appearance (hair, clothes, accessories, even the colors of Annabel's and Lucy's braces). Like Annabel herself, the writing is a mixture of awkward and assured, shallow and searching. Great literature this is not, but it is exactly attuned to its audience; preteen girls will clamor for more. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4^-7. As the book's clever cover shows, Annabel's Australian family has been blended to the max. Annabel and her mother live with Bubbee. Jack, Annabel's father, has moved to Australia with his wife, Penny; Penny's children from a previous marriage, Lucy and Angus; and baby Beatrice, Jack and Penny's child. Annabel is not very happy about any of this, and when she heads to Sydney to meet her new family, hostility is the word of the day, especially after she sees how Lucy and Angus have co-opted her dad. Wittily written, this follows a predictable path as Annabel's animosity turns to tolerance, then acceptance. The Australian setting makes a nice change, however, and a touch of holiday romance also adds appeal for the age group. Cohn uses pop-culture references that will soon date this, but until then, readers will identify with the mixed-up emotions that mixed families engender. --Ilene Cooper

An oh-so-New-York 12-year-old struggles to sort out her relationship within what might be called the ultimate blended family (the front cover has a helpful diagram of all the relationships). Annabel has the sort of relationship with her parents where she calls them by their first names. Even after they split, all was pretty much okay until Jack moved to Australia to marry Penny, become Angus and Lucy's stepdad--an eventuality that has Annabel seeing red--and father Beatrice. Annabel doesn't really want to go to Australia over the Christmas break, but she does, hoping somehow to steal her father back. What she discovers, however, is that he's happier than he ever was and is utterly disinclined to move home, however much he misses her. When Lucy and Annabel, at first enemies but later, convincingly, good friends, sneak off on a trans-Australia train trip, they set into motion a family crisis that brings all members of Annabel's family to Sydney (including her new stepfather- and stepbrother-to-be; it's been a busy vacation for her mother, too) in a sort of giant group hug that, however unlikely in the real world, is nevertheless a nicely satisfying way to end the story. It is a relatively predictable tale of raw feelings, jealousy, new friendships, and reconciliation, but it is enlivened both by Annabel's sassy voice and by the acuity of her observations: "I had . . . never met them, and I knew that in those two years they would have developed a secret family language only they could understand." If there's rather a lot of parent-to-child explaining about love and relationships, readers can still only hope that their own families can sort themselves out as well as Annabel's. (Fiction. 11-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Greer brings an adolescent enthusiasm and stuck-up attitude to spare to her skillful characterization of 12-year-old Annabel, a girl dealing with her ever-evolving, unconventional family. Though Annabel's parents never married each other, they have formed new families with new spouses, bringing a variety of step- and half-siblings into Annabel's once peaceful, only-child world. In an effort to get some blending under way, fashion-conscious Manhattanite Annabel is sent to Australia over Christmas break to visit her father and meet his "other" family. The results are prickly, funny and touching-a good source of material for Greer's multi-layered performance. Though she occasionally stumbles over the rhythms of Cohn's sassy phrasing, Greer does a commendable job tackling the Australian accent Annabel describes as mixing "a British Tinkerbell fairy with a chef from Louisiana." Middle-graders will likely flock to this production of an entertaining (and hip) tale. Simultaneous release with the Simon & Schuster hardcover. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved