Synopsis
Did you know that orange cats are almost always boys? It's true. And cats that are three colors-white, black, and brown-are usually always girls? It's science.
Eight-year-old Emma McGraw loves science. She also loves being an only child and living with her mother in their cozy little condo. So when four-year-old Anthony moves in for a while (into her room!), Emma isn't too happy. He may be cute, but he can't keep his hands off her stuff! And Anthony isn't only a problem at home. Now that Emma is in a new school, she'd like to make some friends, yet how can she invite anyone over when annoying Anthony is there? But Emma's in for a surprise. As the days pass, she begins to realize that having a "little brother" around is a lot more fun than she ever thought it could be.
Filled with over fifty adorable illustrations, Only Emma is sure to wriggle its way into readers' hearts.
Mary Hynes-Berry - Children's Literature
Emma is an 8-year-old only child of a single Mom with very definite ideas about what she wants to do. This does not include having to share her work-at-home mother with the demanding 4-year-old Anthony who comes to stay for a week, while his parents go out of town to tend to sick relatives. The use of first person present narrative voice helps create a strong sense of Emma's lively personality and her ambivalence about Anthony, as well as her own feelings about being an only child and the ups and downs of an emerging friendship with her classmate "Cynthia." A nice touch is the way the narrative shows Emma's dawning recognition of her mother's conflicted feelings about not having a little one to cuddle anymore. The line drawings once or twice a chapter echo the pert tone of the book and are likely to help newly fluent readers triumphantly finish a real chapter book on their own. The audience this book is likely to appeal to is very much the kind of little girl Emma is. 2005, Viking/Penguin, Ages 8 to 10.