Moxy Maxwell is Back!

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-You Notes
by Peggy Gifford, illustrated by Valorie Fisher
published by Schwartz and Wade (Random House)
hits the shelves TODAY, August 12, 2008
review copy compliments of the publisher

Moxy has one more day to write her Christmas thank-you notes. If she misses the deadline, her mom won't let her go to Hollywood to visit the father she hasn't seen for three years.

Only Moxy can make not writing thank-you notes so entertaining. Much of the not writing takes place in Ajax's office, and involves Ajax's new copy machine that he got for Christmas, and Ajax's La-Z-Boy chair, and Ajax's carefully organized piles that are everywhere. (Ajax is the "famous children's book writer" who married Moxy and Mark's mom. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Ajax is modeled after J. Patrick Lewis, Peggy Gifford's brother in-law.)

There is also a surprise return appearance by gold spray paint, even though readers of Moxy's experience with her summer reading in Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little might assume that Moxy had learned her lesson about spray paint.

Moxy's mom is again deserving of sainthood in this book, and although it's not clear whether Moxy will ever get her Christmas thank-yous written, she does indeed write the "first real thank-you note of her life."