Play It Again, Mallory

Mallory McDonald #20

by Laurie B. Friedman, Jennifer Kalis (Illustrations)

Mallory is excited about the six-week arts electives program at Fern Falls Elementary - until she gets stuck in her last-choice class, band. To make matters worse, she is assigned to the tuba, and when she plays, it sounds more like passing gas than music. Everyone else seems to be enjoying music, dance, and drama, but Mallory dreads the final showcase that's coming up fast! Can her friends, family, and teacher help her find the "magic" that makes playing music fun?

Genres: Childrens

160 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2013

About the author

Laurie Friedman is the author and ghostwriter of over 300 award-winning picture books, easy readers, chapter books, and novels for young readers including the bestselling Mallory McDonald series, the Moose the Dog easy reader series, the Camp Creepy Lake and Wendy & Willow chapter books, and may picture books including Cows in the House and Love, Ruby Valentine.

Reviews

[Stephanie Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this installment in the series is my favorite one so far. I can definitely relate to Mallory on a personal level. I started playing the clarinet when I was 9 (the fourth grade) and I can definitely feel for Mallory. Playing for an audience is NOT easy, always having the fear of messing up. Practice DOES make perfect. Unfortunately, I stopped playing after I graduated high school at the age of 17. College classes and jobs took up all of my time. I still have my clarinet to this very day; I take it out every now and then to wash it and keep it up to snuff, even if I don’t play it.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I play euphonium, a type of tuba.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mallory is very excited when she learns that each student in her fourth grade class will have the opportunity to take a six-week arts elective and perform for their parents at the end of the course. She decides right away to do performing arts, since she loved acting in Annie so much, but she is devastated when she is given her third choice, band, instead. Worse still, she doesn’t get to play the flute or the drums as she imagined; she is instead assigned to the tuba. Resentful of her teacher and irritated with everyone else’s happiness, Mallory doesn’t take her practice very seriously, until there is only a week left before the performance and she discovers she might embarrass herself on stage and ruin the concert for the entire band.

I haven’t been that crazy about the last few Mallory stories, but this one really agreed with me. As in many of the earlier books of the series, Mallory is faced with a realistic childhood problem, and she must find a way to get past her own ego in order to resolve it. This formula has been the heart of this series from the beginning, and I really enjoyed watching Mallory grow in maturity even over the course of this short chapter book. I also thought the pacing of this story, and the writing in general, were well done. There were no boring lulls between important events, and the passage of time was handled clearly and effectively. I’m not suggesting that this wasn’t the case in previous books, but because the events of this book took place over a six-week span of time, it was more evident in this particular story where the passage of time played such a key role.

In my review of the last Mallory book, number 19, Mallory and Mary Anne Take New York, I mentioned that I thought book 20 would be the last book, because Laurie Friedman had said as much in an interview, but after reading Play it Again, Mallory, it doesn’t seem like this is the final installment after all. I hope there will be at least one more, as this book doesn’t really wrap up the entire series, even though it is a very satisfying read on its own.

Play it Again, Mallory will appeal most to fans of the series, but even kids who haven’t read any of the other books will easily be able to follow the story and understand Mallory’s struggle with her tuba. Musical read-alikes might include The Spring Un-fair by Louise Bonnett-Rampersaud and Skeletons Don’t Play Tubas from the Bailey School Kids series.

[Kaytee · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was awesome really awesome but i still doo not like it when sh gets fussy when she does not get what she wants kinda errrrrrrr like m* my fav was when mallory began to play it really good i wish i could play an instrument right now even though i am still in third grade i still wish but it takes alot of air i think and i tried my sisters flute and i barely blew into it but i still wish.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great read for an early reader. Great message about perseverance. I'm so glad my student recommended and donated the book to our class library.

[Hillvan]

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