Children's Book Review: *Sophie Simon Solves Them All* by Lisa Graff

Sophie Simon Solves Them All by Lisa Graff

Back-of-the-book blurb:  For a third-grader, Sophie Simon is one smart cookie. She enjoys teaching herself advanced calculus and has performed successful heart surgery on an earthworm. She’s also very clever when it comes to dealing with her clueless parents. But Sophie is no genius when it comes to calculating the high value of friendship–until, that is, she has to use her incredible IQ to help out some classmates with their own parental troubles.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review:  When I was invited to review Sophie Simon Solves Them All, I didn’t get any further than reading the publisher’s synopsis before saying YES!  A girl who’d rather read than hang out with her peers?!?  I have one (or more) of those!  A kid who likes to invent creative solutions to problems?!?  Yep, we’ve got that, too!  And, Sophie Simon, the eponymous heroine, happens to be eight years old, making this a perfect book to review with the help of my clever bookish 8-year-old!

We enjoyed it thoroughly – from the list of Who’s Who in the opening pages, to the fun glossary and taffy recipe in the back pages – Sophie Simon and her peers had us laughing and empathizing with them.

LW8 was especially tickled with how silly the parents were; Sophie’s mom and dad call her food-based nicknames – walnut, snickerdoodle, sugarplum, bean sprout – there must have been a hundred of them, with no repeats.  We fooled around calling each other “peanut butter” and “pancake” for a few days, cracking up each time we thought of Sophie and her adventures.

Without giving away the plot, we’ll say that Sophie Simon manages to solve not only her own problem, but those of a few classmates as well.  In the process, she learns that their friendship is valuable, even if they don’t understand calculus (or even want to understand it) the way she does.

The dozen or so grayscale drawings by Jason Beene are clever (adults tend to be caricatures); enough of them to provide a visual respite, not too many as to be distracting.

LW8 asked Sophie to solve a problem that she has been wrestling with.  In this video (about a minute long), she reads her letter to Sophie, whose answer is transcribed below:

Sophie responds:

Dear GWLTR,

From one girl who likes to read to another, I agree that this is a doozy of a problem! A girl should always be able to return her library books on time.

The first, and most obvious, solution to your problem is to trade in your brother for another, less well-read, model. A new brother (one who only enjoys video games, perhaps) would definitely not steal your library books, and would probably talk less at the dinner table to boot.

However, if your parents don’t like this solution for some reason, I have a Plan B–Operation: Book Spy. 

The first thing you’ll need to do is to make a homemade pinhole camera (see here for some clear instructions). I suggest making a camera out of a shoebox, but you can use something even sneakier if you’re feeling up to it, like a juice box or even an Altoids tin. This might seem like a lot of work, but as any book-lover knows, there’s no amount of effort too great to avoid overdue library fines!

After you’ve finished making your camera and the film is loaded, place it, with the pinhole side facing up, on a table that you know your brother will notice. Then put the books on top. Make sure you have checked out some really good books that week, ones you know he won’t be able to resist stealing! Then leave the room and wait (preferably behind a door, like most good spies).

When your brother attempts to steal the books, he will have to lift them off the shoebox camera, which will uncover the pinhole and take a picture–catching him in the act! Then, as soon as he’s gone, you can race out from your super-secret hiding spot and scoop up the camera to make sure the film gets developed properly. When you present your parents with the evidence, your brother won’t be able to deny it–he will have been caught stealing your books, red-handed, and will have to agree to stop.

 Or you could just tell him to go get his own library card…

 Very best wishes,

Sophie Simon

Farrar, Straus & Giroux is giving away a free copy of Sophie Simon Solves Them All to one lucky blog reader! Just send an email to graff.lisa@yahoo.com, along with the name of this blog (tell her She Is Too Fond of Books and LW8 sent you!), for a chance to win (winners will be notified within the week). For more information, visit www.lisagraff.com.