Phineas L. MacGuire Series for Boys

I love Clementine, Junie B. Jones and Moxy Maxwell. I laugh out loud at all of their adventures. I recommend them to all of my first through third grade readers, and also to my older readers who just like a quick, fun read. Now, I have a series that I can recommend that features a boy character.

Phineas Listerman MacGuire, Mac, Big Mac, Phin, or Phineas, but never Listerman is a fourth grade science freak! He loves science, all kinds of science, and raises slime mold in his bedroom. His best friends are Aretha, an over achiever, class president who has dreams of being the best Girl Scout ever in the history of their school and Ben, the gifted artist who creates comics and in this episode, a video.

In the third installment Phineas is obsessed with going to Space Camp and is looking for ways to make money. The first opportunity involves walking Lemon Drop, the biggest yellow lab in the history of the world. Phineas is amazed at the amount of drool that a dog creates and his scientific mind begins to race. Ben video tapes as Phin and Aretha collect dog saliva for a series of experiments. Author Francis O'Roark Dowell (Shooting the Moon) creates fun characters and puts them in some hilarious situations.

One of my favorite characters is Mrs. McClosky, Lemon Drop's owner. According to Phineas she is approximately eight thousand years old but still has a pretty good arm for throwing a slobbery tennis ball. I love the interaction between her and the children. Mrs. McClosky calls them all by the wrong names, names that are close in sound to the real thing, but never quite right. The children NEVER correct her! I love that they accept that this is part of her and we don't have precocious children correcting her in a disrespectful tone.

I'm very excited to have a series for the younger readers that features a boy, and I'm even more excited that it's written by a quality author like Francis O'Roark Dowell. If you have not read Shooting the Moon yet, I strongly encourage you to move it to the top of your pile, you won't be disappointed, and if you are looking for a "boy"series, pick up Phineas L. MacGuire, you won't be disappointed there either.