Ellen Tebbits doesn't have a close friend in her neighborhood. No one to play with. But then she meets Austine, who has moved to town from California. At first, Ellen doesn't care for Austine, but soon they become best friends. The two girls behave like real 4th graders... occasionally being mean, even to their best friend. They have spats. They make up. And both have to deal with Otis Spofford, whose goal in life seems to be to irritate girls his age.
Originally published in 1951, I thought this book aged remarkably well. Apart from the girls all wearing dresses to school, and the presence of a Maypole dance, the story fits just fine with the world today. A good light read for elementary school kids. ( )

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Third-grader Ellen Tebbits has a secret none of the other girls at school can know: her mother makes her wear winter underwear. During ballet class with Valerie Todd Spofford, Ellen and the new girl, Austine, realize that they share the same secret - and that makes it not so bad. The two become best friends, but when they ask their mothers to make them matching dresses, something goes awry (Otis Spofford has something to do with it) and the girls have a fight. Can they fix their misunderstanding and make up? ( )

Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary is an amusing contemporary realistic fiction book about Ellen Tebbits and her classmates. Otis Spotford, who is Ellen's dance teacher's son and in Ellen's class at school, can usually be counted on cause some kind of disturbance. In his mother's dance class, he comically imitates Ellen's dance steps. In school, he takes out his Mexican jumping beans so other students want to watch them instead of paying attention to the lesson. He also creates unnecessary trouble between Ellen and her best friend Augustine. This book would be great for readers in elementary school in grades 2 and up as a chapter book to learn about everyday life of elementary school students with humorous situations. ( )