A great, funny book with a convincing and readable child narrator. I feel like I so rarely read these kind of voices in J Fiction: funny, bossy, believable. This book may be wildly inappropriate for kids, given the date of publication. It is maybe one of the only kids' books where a kid dresses up like a carton of cigarettes and another threatens to import ayahuasca from South America. Personally I think it's good for kids to read books from bygone eras that give them a lot of opportunities to ask questions, and I recommend this heartily. It's fun and funny. It also features an interracial friendship in a "no big deal" way, which is rare from books from this era; Judy Blume (although I love her) tends to be so whitewashed, you'd think no one lived anywhere but New Jersey. A wonderful book from the author of "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." My edition had a goofy, daisy-printed cover to let readers know it was "for girls" but this is for everyone.