Brain Pickings' Top 13 Children's, Illustrated, and Picture Books of 2013 Crisply satirical and a little subversive, Twain's short, acerbic sendup slyly exhorts little girls to take a calculating approach to manipulating friends, brothers and elders. [...] An elegant curiosity for admirers of Twain, Radunsky or both.
Kirkus Review Radunsky's ink flourishes and adorable, lumpy figures ... Read moresteal the stage.
Publishers Weekly Twain did not squat down to be heard and understood by children, but asked them to stand on their tiptoes
to absorb the kind of language and humor suitable for adults.
New York Review of Books While frolicsome in tone and full of wink, the story
like the most timeless of children's books
is colored with subtle hues of grown-up philosophy on the human condition, exploring all the deft ways in which we creatively rationalize our wrongdoing and reconcile the good and evil we each embody.
Brain Pickings it is sharp, a pointed set of admonitions urging girls to think for themselves, which is a message as essential today as it was a century-and-a-half ago.
The Los Angeles Times a sharp, charming story suitable for smart girls (and grown ups!) everywhere, and Radunsky's illustrations bring it to scribbled, red-cheeked life. It may just be the best picture book we've ever read.
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