What NOW, Mollie?

This funny middle grade book stars an ingenious fifth-grader, Mollie, who lives on the Gulf Coast of Texas in 1955. Mollie wants to win her class's Good Citizen Award to give the trophy to her beloved Great-Aunt Nyla, who lost her own award from her girlhood. The award goes to a student who helps others, but adults keep blocking Mollie's uniquely "helpful" ideas.

This funny book features fifth grader Mollie, who lives on the Gulf Coast of Texas in 1955. Mollie loves words and has a Good Word Collection. She wants to win her school's Good Citizen Award to give the trophy to her beloved Great-Aunt Nyla on her 80th birthday. The catch is that Mollie has to have an adult sign off on each Good Citizen deed, and the adults involved don't always see her "logical" ideas as all that good. Mollie's ideas are certainly creative: If your mother tells you your brother got up on the wrong side of the bed, isn't it logical to push him off the other side? When he wants the dog to come to him, why not open a can of dog food and shove the meat into his pockets? If you and your classmates are learning about South America, why not draw it on the playground and have students lie down on the dirt in a shape like a country? When your mother asks you to wrap your brother's birthday gift so he won't guess what it is, what's wrong with putting it inside a loaf of bread?

Virginia V. Kidd grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, then got an M.A. from California State University, Sacramento and a Ph.D. in speech communication from the University of Minnesota. As a professor, she taught creative problem solving and speech. As a playwright, she wrote plays for students such as "Happily Ever Once Upon" and "The Capricious Pearls."