Move over, Clementine! Make room, Ramona! Judy Moody, Clarice Bean and Lucy Rose, you have a friend: Abigail Iris, The One and Only!

Abigail Iris is eight years old, and her adventures are just right for second and third grade readers. She has three friends, all of whom happen to be Onlies, the only child in the family. Abigail Iris, has two brothers and a sister, and while she’s not exactly jealous of her friends’ families, she does see some definite advantages to being an Only.

For instance, according to Abigail Iris:

“When you’re an Only, your house is sometimes bigger, and your car always, always has automatic windows.” Also “lots of leg room even in the backseat.”

“When you’re an Only, you have Heelys and sometimes you get pierced ears before you turn twelve. You have your own room and you can paint it any color you want.”

“Room service isn’t nearly as impressive when you’re an Only.”

“Oh, and you get your own big bed at the hotel, and even when you lay in the middle of that bed and spread your arms our as far as they’ll go, you’ll never, ever reach the end of the mattress. It’s impossible.”

“Onlies have Heelys and beach cruisers and get to go to ballet camp in the summer.”

And “Onlies are the luckiest girls in all of the world because they are not on a budget.”

In a nutshell, the book tells the story of how Abigail Iris gets to go on vacation with one of her best Only friends, Genevieve, to San Francisco and of how she figures out that “even Onlies aren’t happy every single minute.” There’s a nice balance in the book between the advantages and disadvantages of being an only child and the ups and downs of having a larger family. And Abigail Iris is a delight.

Thanks to Bloomsbury/Walker Books for sending the review copy of this one, this time for real. I’m going to give it to my nine year old and watch her smile her way through it.

Expected publication date: March, 2009.

Go here for Little Willow’s list of Ramona readalikes, and I expect her to add Abigail Iris soon.