Gr 2-5 Nine-year-old Minneapolis resident Julia Gillian leads a comfortable urban life surrounded by caring parents and helpful neighbors. Her parents permit her to be on her own and take a nine-square-block walk for one hour with her devoted dog, Bigfoot. Each day, within these parameters, Julia Gillian explores her world. A pattern of repeated conversations, moods, and outcomes gives the child sufficient information to analyze the behavior of her neighbors, her dog, her parents, and herself. Her list of accomplishments includes making papier-mâché animal masks and knowing how other people feel. When her parents insist that she finish reading a book about a boy and an old dog, she is sure it will have an unhappy ending and goes to great lengths to avoid it. Her neighbor tells her about her own demons and says that, "Sometimes the only way out is through," and Julia's self-absorption starts to recede as she discovers that she is not alone in being afraid. The illustrations of Julia Gillian's masks and supersize St. Bernard add a whimsical note to the book. Julia Gillian isn't the perky, smart-mouthed heroine one finds in many contemporary books. Instead, she is acutely conscious of achieving a new maturity that allows her to question authority and to assert herself-not bad for a nine-year-old. Lillian Hecker, Town of Pelham Public Library, NY

For nine-year-old Julia Gillian, life in Minneapolis has been nearly perfect. But as the summer progresses, that changes. Her parents are taking summer classes, which means no picnics at the park; the stuffed meerkat that Julia wants to win in the claw machine at the hardware store seems to elude her at every try; and the newspapers her parents read are filled with depressing headlines. And then there's the book Julia does not want to finish because she suspects it will have an unhappy ending. This gently told tale shows how she learns to deal with these bumps in the road. At times, her parents' lax attitude toward Julia's unsupervised wanderings may seem unrealistic, and Julia herself is a bit of an odd duck whose friends are mostly adults (except for one large, loving dog).Yet readers will root for Julia, whose appealing, if quirky, personality comes out in the plentiful sketches as well as the text. The first of an intended series.

Nine-year-old Julia Gillian goes out of her way to avoid unhappy endings. Fortunately there's a lot for Julia Gillian to be happy about, including her growing list of such personal accomplishments as making papier-mache masks, spreading her gum evenly across her top row of teeth and her skill at the "art of knowing." Julia Gillian lives in a south Minneapolis apartment with her good-natured schoolteacher parents and her beloved St. Bernard, Bigfoot. Normally they spend summer vacations doing special things like visiting the water park and picnicking at Lake Harriet Rose Garden, but this summer her parents are busy studying, leaving Julia Gillian on her own. Even though she loves walking Bigfoot and visiting her neighbors, the resourceful Julia Gillian can't help thinking about the book with the unhappy ending she's afraid to finish. Decorated with Kozjan's swiftly drawn vignettes, the straightforward text, packed with daily details, seems directly descended from Beverly Cleary's works. A fresh, winsome heroine learns a lesson about facing her fears in this first of an anticipated series. (Fiction. 7-10)