Glitter Girls and the Great Fake-Out by Meg Cabot (MG)
Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, #5. 194 p. Scholastic, March, 2010.
Allie's back and she is really looking forward to supporting Erica's sister, Missy as she competes in the Twirltacular - only Allie's mom accepted a birthday invitation to Brittany Hauser's birthday party. Allie doesn't even like Brittany Hauser. She doesn't want to go until she learns that she'll be picked up in a limo and whisked off to Glitterati for a day of modeling and glitz, followed by a sleepover in a luxury hotel.
Allie, of course, lies to her friends. And she lies about having a boyfriend to her frenemies at Brittany's party. But her powers of observation are so on target as she deals with Brittany's mean girl machinations, that the reader can't help but root for Allie.
These books are laugh-out-loud funny, but also engaging and true. I read the first two, suggested them to a couple of students and word-of-mouth took it from there. These books are wildly popular with the fifth graders at my school, so when I saw this one available for review at my Book Evaluation, I grabbed it, totally forgetting that I ordered it and the one other. Sigh.
One librarian comment: The cover is a dilemma. It's double sided. Also, the cardboard cover of the book is colorful and adorable and totally different than the paper cover of the book. I like to booktalk this series before I throw the plastic cover on the book, so I can point this out.