Julie Tells Her Story (American Girls: Julie, #2)

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Julie Tells Her Story (American Girls: Julie #2)

by Megan McDonald

3.92 · rating details · 200 ratings · 24 reviews

Julie is working on her school project, "The Story of My Life," and enjoying it, until she has to write about "The Worst Thing That Ever Happened." That would be her parents divorce, and she doesn t want to tell classmates about it. After her big basketball game ends badly, she decides that could be her "worst thing." But as her family rallie...more

Paperback, 91 pages

Published September 4th 2007 by American Girl Publishing Inc (first published September 2007)

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Dec 16, 2011

Ciara rated it

Shelves: kids-books, read-in-2011

the cover photo is an illustration of julie interviewing her mother using the tape recorder her father bought for her in japan. when i saw this illustration & realized that julie's mom is a ginormous hippie, i started to wonder if perhaps the albrights' marriage broke up because ma albright started having an affair with hank, the grizzled hippie veteran who is always baking zucchini bread & organizing petitions.

julie's story continues to be a yawn. in this book, julie's class is given ...morethe cover photo is an illustration of julie interviewing her mother using the tape recorder her father bought for her in japan. when i saw this illustration & realized that julie's mom is a ginormous hippie, i started to wonder if perhaps the albrights' marriage broke up because ma albright started having an affair with hank, the grizzled hippie veteran who is always baking zucchini bread & organizing petitions.

julie's story continues to be a yawn. in this book, julie's class is given an assignment. they have to write their autobiographies. they are encouraged to interview their parents about what they were like when they were children, & address the topics "the best thing that ever happened to me" & "the worst thing that ever happened to me". julie is intrigued by the assignment until she hears about the "worst thing" aspect. she feels that the worst thing that ever happened to her was her parents' divorce. hey, julie? get over it. i bet it was way worse for your parents than it was for you. when the teacher adds that the kids will be expected to do oral presentations of their autobiographies in front of their classmates, julie is even more dismayed. she doesn't want to admit to the entire class that her parents are divorced (even though it was established in meet julie that most of her classmates at least suspect that reality, even if it hasn't been totally confirmed--this series sucks when it comes to continuity).

julie gets a little more excited about the assignment when her dad gives her a cool tape recorder. she interviews him & he talks about how he broke his leg or something when he was julie's age. he explains that the bone grew back even stronger at the fracture site than it had been before. hmmm, i wonder if julie will pick up on this thinly-veiled aphorism & apply it to her experience as a child of divorce? *rolls eyes*

there is also a long, tedious scene in which julie goes to her friend ivy's house. ivy is basically a poster child for the chinese american experience. ivy & julie spend a lot of time painting chinese characters on pages ripped from the phone book. this is an activity that ivy supposedly loves. bear this in mind when i review good luck, ivy, in which ivy claims to hate painting chinese characters & claims to suck at it. wherefore art thou, consistent characterization?

there is also a long scene that didn't make any sense to me in which julie's older sister, tracy, asks julie to plant-sit. apparently tracy is doing a science experiment involving a spider plant, but she wants to go to a party where she & her teenage friends are going to see how many people they can fit in a VW bug. after that, they're going to take off all their clothes, drop acid, & eat some california cheeseburgers before murdering sharon tate. or maybe not. but the VW bug part is real. julie agrees to take on the plant-sitting job, &...i'm not master gardener, but i think a spider plant is going to be A-okay just hanging out on a desk alone for twelve hours. it does not require supervision. especially supervision in the form of a nine-year-old girl who immediately manages to knock the plant out the window so its pot shatters on the sidewalk outside. julie then stuff the plant into her purse & hightails it to some shopping strip to pick up a new planter. the spider plant had been potted in a planter shaped like a purple hippo. julie selects a pink pig-shaped planter & hopes her sister won't notice the difference. um...really? i guess sometimes nine-year-olds are kind of dumb. let's move on.

julie plays in a big basketball game & gets knocked down & somehow manages to break her finger. she has to miss the rest of the game & she decides this will be her "worst thing ever" for her paper. but, bonus: after she gets out of the ER, her entire family goes out to dinner--their first all-family time together since the divorce. somehow this inspires julie to change her paper & admit that her parents are divorced & that was her "worst thing ever," but she will come back stronger in the place where her family fractured. *puke*

also, rather than delivering her paper in person, she sets up her tape recorder & just plays her interviews as is. i mean, supposedly she edited them together into something coherent, but i don't know how she managed to do that without a tape splicer & real-time playback apparatus, etc. unless that was a damn nice tape recorder. i feel that the "reading aloud" portion of the assignment was probably a test of public speaking & julie should be marked down for using a tape recorder. but whatever. i guess it's obvious that i don't really care for julie or her stories.(less)

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Mar 29, 2009

Taylor rated it

Julie is working on her school project "the story of my life", until she comes to the part where it asks you to tell about "the worst thing that has ever happen". That would be her parents divorce. But she didn't want to mention that to her whole class because she knew they would make fun of her. maybe she could tell about one of her worst basketball games, but who knows what she can do. Are you interested to know what happens THEN READ THE BOOK :). this book was really inte...more

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Jan 17, 2012

Madalyn H rated it

Julie's story was how she was to tell a story about her life at school. Her story went well, but she broke her finger during a basketball game so she couldn't write her story so she recorded it and played it to the class. The story went well until she had to talk about her parent's divorce, which made her sad.

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Jan 22, 2011

Ashley rated it

Shelves: abby-and-me, childrens

I had to explain to Abby what a tape-recorder was, but other than that, she loved the message about Julie's family--that even though her parents are divorced, her family is still a family and will be there for each other.

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Dec 11, 2009

Katie rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 03, 2010

Grace rated it

I thought it was really good because she finally told the truth. And I learned that it's really important to tell the truth, even though I already know that.

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Nov 15, 2009

Maggie rated it

Shelves: american-girl, 3rd-grade

I like how Julie always gets over her problems in a good way. It's sad that her parents got divorced, but she still found a way to be a happy kid!

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Nov 29, 2008

Sarah rated it

This book is set in the 70's. It has a great story line and is very intresting. I loved and could read it a MILLION TIMES!

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Jun 07, 2010

Angela added it

I also liked this one book. I knew that in some parts it was not good, but it was still intersting.

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Jun 17, 2010

Amber rated it

Shelves: 09-10, ashlyn

A review by Ashlyn: I liked that book a really lot. Because it was just so good. I would recommend this to anybody.

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Mar 02, 2009

Steph rated it

Part of a great series of books. A recommended reading for girls of all ages.

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Jan 11, 2012

Amanda rated it

Shelves: mini-me-books

My daughter is in love with Julie. I can't even describe how much she really does. Thank you for a awesome book!

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Nov 16, 2010

Lori rated it

Again, enjoyable. Annabelle and I have really enjoyed this series.

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Dec 13, 2009

Katie is currently reading it · review of another edition

that when Juile was playing basket ball she fell and hurt
her hand

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Aug 06, 2011

Minervinij marked it as to-read

I LOVE these books..........

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Jun 22, 2008

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: historicalfiction, kids, chapterbook

Basically this is a school story that's set in the 70s. Julie has to do a project about her family and is thrilled when her dad brings her an actual tape recorder with microphone so she can tape her interviews. Unfortunately the project includes talking about the worst thing that has ever happened in her life and Julie doesn't want to talk about her parents getting divorced. Nothing special here, but it is a solid school story that mid and upper grade school girls will be able to relate to ea...more

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Jan 26, 2012

PWRL marked it as to-read

Shelves: z2012-1-jan-new

A
E
SM

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Mar 26, 2010

Emily rated it

AWESOME

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Mar 11, 2010

Queen Susan the Gentle rated it

Shelves: american-girl

"The story of my life" is a report Julie has to do for school. Evey part of it is easy to answer, except for the the part, "the worst thing that ever happened to me". And that would be the seperation of Julie's parents. But she doesn't want to share that with the WHOLE class. But when she breaks her finger and the whole family gathers around her, she learns an important lesson...

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Nov 25, 2009

Snorkle rated it

Shelves: juvenile, read-2009

Parts of this book seemed a little juvenile, but that might only be because I am not in the assumed reading bracket. Still, this story wasn't boring and had a decent pace, I might recommend.

*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2009/05...

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Aug 05, 2008

Mary rated it

Julie had to write a report about her life. She interviews her mom and her dad. In the middle, she plant sits for her sister and hits i t out the window on accident with a basketball and breaks the pot and almost kills the plant. SHe also records her sisters phone call and gets in trouble.

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Jun 06, 2008

Lauren rated it

i liked two partes of this book.
1. when she wanted to BABY SIT her sister made her PLANT SIT insted.
2. after she broke her arm her WHOLE family went out to dinner.

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Apr 10, 2008

Brianna rated it

The 70s are only ok. My friend has divorced parents, so she liked how Julie's parents are divorced.

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Aug 04, 2008

Ciera rated it

This was really good!

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Aug 26, 2008

Alexandra rated it

it was awesome

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Feb 09, 2012

Abby Carpus rated it

Feb 09, 2012

Dahlia Winders added it

Feb 07, 2012

Beth O'Connell rated it

Feb 07, 2012

Emily rated it

Jan 30, 2012

Kate rated it

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About Megan McDonald

"Sometimes I think I am Judy Moody," says Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody series, the Stink series, and THE SISTERS CLUB. "I'm certainly moody, like she is. Judy has a strong voice and always speaks up for herself. I like that."

For Megan McDonald, being able to speak up for herself wasn't always easy. She grew up as the youngest of five sisters in Pittsbur...more"Sometimes I think I am Judy Moody," says Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody series, the Stink series, and THE SISTERS CLUB. "I'm certainly moody, like she is. Judy has a strong voice and always speaks up for herself. I like that."

For Megan McDonald, being able to speak up for herself wasn't always easy. She grew up as the youngest of five sisters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father, an ironworker, was known to his coworkers as "Little Johnny the Storyteller." Every evening at dinner the McDonalds would gather to talk and tell stories, but Megan McDonald was barely able to get a word in edgewise. "I'm told I began to stutter," she says, leading her mother to give her a notebook so she could start "writing things down."

Critically acclaimed, the Judy Moody books have won numerous awards, ranging from a PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Best Book of the Year to an International Reading Association Children's Choice. "Judy has taken on a life of her own," the author notes, with nearly 3 million Judy Moody books in print. Interestingly, the feisty third-grader is highly popular with boys and girls, making for a strong base of fans who are among Megan McDonald's strongest incentives to keep writing, along with "too many ideas and a little chocolate." And now -- by popular demand -- Judy Moody's little brother, Stink, gets his chance to star in his own adventures! Beginning with STINK: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING KID, three more stories, and his own encyclopedia, STINK-O-PEDIA, Stink's special style comes through loud and strong -- enhanced by a series of comic strips, drawn by Stink himself, which are sprinkled throughout the first book. About the need for a book all about Stink, Megan McDonald says, "Once, while I was visiting a class full of Judy Moody readers, the kids, many with spiked hair à la Judy's little brother, chanted, 'Stink! Stink! Stink! Stink! Stink!' as I entered the room. In that moment, I knew that Stink had to have a book all his own."

More recently, Megan McDonald has recalled some of her own childhood with the warmth, humor -- and squabbles -- of three spunky sisters in THE SISTERS CLUB.

Megan McDonald and her husband live in Sebastopol, California, with two dogs, two adopted horses, and fifteen wild turkeys that like to hang out on their back porch.
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Books by Megan McDonald

Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor is In! (Judy Moody #5)

Judy Moody Predicts the Future (Judy Moody, #4)

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Julie Tells Her Story (American Girls: Julie #2)

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