Bella

I love having friends of all ages, and one of them is Bella. She is 10 years old, the niece of my good friends Emily and Noreen. My first memory of Bella is when she was a very curious and talkative two-year old, cruising around Em and Nor's house getting into everything she could reach. On a later visit, I got to go to her fourth birthday party, which was awesome. She let Em and me jump in the bouncy castle and gave us lots of helpful directions when we weren't doing it exactly right. That made us laugh, which made jumping even more fun. I remember that one of her presents was a Bratz doll that said things like, "I'm bored. I want to go shopping." That also made us laugh. Especially when Bella, looking alarmed, asked Emily, "How do you turn her off?"

A few years ago, when Bella was maybe 8, we escaped to the guest room and made up stories while all the adults talked about real life in the living room--and I'm pretty sure we had more fun than they did.

One of the high points of my visit a few weeks ago to attend Emily and Noreen's wedding celebration dinner was catching up with Bella. Yikes! She is so grown up! She was wearing a way cool outfit, including a peace scarf that I was tempted to ask if I could borrow. She has these very stylish glasses that make her look beautiful and smart!

We had a high old time cheating on the test about Em and Nor. (I know, I am a bad influence. But we didn't win, so maybe it was okay. Plus, her grandma helped--for whatever that's worth. Note: the picture was taken right after we finished the test, before we knew we hadn't won. Don't we look so happy with ourselves!)

Anyway, my favorite thing about Bella is how much she loves books. Like all serious book-lovers, she had a book on hand at the dinner...just in case. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which she highly recommended.

She is at that great "tweener" age, just starting to discover some of the really good upper middle-grade and YA novels, so it was fun to visit Vroman's Books together and chat about all the books we'd read and loved--and add a bunch of books we saw there to the long list of books that we still want to read.

We wholeheartedly agree that there is just not enough time in the world to read all the books we want to read! But we're both dedicated to giving it our best shot!

So, I'm just thinking. How cool would it be to have some young reader book reviews on my blog?

Hey, Bella! How about doing the first one?