The Friendship Matchmaker

Title: The Friendship Matchmaker
Author: Randa Abdel-Fattah
First Published: Scholastic 2011

Lara Zany in Potts Court Primary's 'Official Friendship Matchmaker'. she is writer of the Friendship Rules-which she is certain work, all friendships are approved by her and people come to her to sort out all their fights. she can take the Loneliest Loser and find them a best friend. Then Emily Wong turns up on the first day of 2nd term and disagrees to conform, why should she have to eat cheese sandwiches instead of meatballs for lunch? why shouldn't she paint her nails in different colours? Lara's rules are about to be put to the test.

Quick Review
a brilliant book for girls of about the age of nine. a nice reminder of how special friendship is, how it works and the importance of being yourself. it's simply written, with a big font, only about 170 pages with lists of rules from Lara's Friendship Manual.

Quote
She was obviously in the mood for looking like a zebra: black & white striped t-shirt, black skirt with a thick white hem, black headband and white hair tie, and one black and one white earring. Plus black runners and white socks. "is it international Save the Zebra Day?" i asked.
she smoothed and her skirt. "Thanks" she said enthusiastically "i do look great"
What Cheek!

Babble
i enjoyed the friendship matchmaker, though it's clearly meant for a younger audience. though it's clearly bad the way Lara encourages people to completely change who they are to make friends you understand why she does it. it's clear there's a story behind it. this is a laboured point from the beginning, i found it to be a bit too obvious, which would be fine for nine year olds. the back story of Lara comes out at the end, but it was a bit rushed.

Emily's a great character i loved hearing about her ideas and clothes. she has a shirt, but i won't ruin the surprise :) she's also kind, and smart and determined to be true to herself and unique.
Lara's lovely to because behind her rules is actually a desire for everyone to have a best friend, she just isn't sure how to go about it.
it also has a cute cover ans swirls and stars throughout the book.
best of all i think there's going to be a sequel