Although considered the second book in the phenomenal series by Judy Blume known as The Fudge Books, I consider “Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great” to be more of a spin-off since it deal’s with Fudge’s brother’s nemesis. Sheila Tubman is the sworn enemy of Peter Hatcher, however Peter is scarcely mentioned in this book. “Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great” follows Sheila Tubman during the summer before her fifth grade year. Even though she wants to spend her summer vacation at Disneyland, the Tubmans end up spending the summer in Tarrytown, at the house of one of Mr. Tubman’s colleagues. During the summer, Sheila constantly argues with her older sister Libby, finds a best friend whose name is Mouse, starts a newspaper for the day camp, and faces her biggest fears.
From the day that the Tubmans move into the Egrans’ house Sheila is facing terrible fears. First off, they have a dog. A dog! Peter Hatcher has a dog whose name is Turtle and Sheila can’t stand him. Sheila is afraid of dogs! She makes her parents promise that the dog will stay outside. Talk about fears! The first night in Bobby Egran’s room Sheila sees a spider crawling on the ceiling and gets her dad out of bed to catch it. Sheila’s parents make her sign up for swimming lessons at the local pool. Swimming? Sheila? She doesn’t think so! Will Sheila learn how to swim or will she spend the summer watching her best friend’s four-year-old sister dive into the deep end?
Day camp is more fun that Sheila could have ever imagined. Even though they are supposed to change activities every week, she and her friend Mouse have stuck with the pottery class. One day she gets the idea that she could start a camp newspaper. She gathers information about her friend and campmates, but when she goes to type it the computer is unavailable. Plus, when the copy machine is down, Sheila ends up having to use a different machine to print out the copies. Will the day camp newspaper be a complete disaster?
“Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great” teaches lessons about what can happen when you pretend to know everything. Sheila figures out that it is okay that her friends know more about other things than she does and that it’s okay to admit when you are scared. Your child will love this book.
For more information about The Fudge Books, visit JudyBlume.com.
“Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great” is available at most major booksellers, including Amazon.