The Pee Wee Scouts books are kind of like a gender-free Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. I would say that this book in particular would appeal more to girls than boys because the story is written from the perspective of a girl, Molly, who likes to wish hexes on people and crosses her eyes when she feels they have it better than she does and.In this story the Pee Wee Scouts face two challenges. Their first challenge is baking cookies. Somehow I remember this being a lot funnier when I was a kid than I do now. The scouts learn to bake cookies at their meeting, and, of course, things go wrong. They didn't read the directions through and kind of made it up as they went along. They're clearly going to need help if they want to earn their cookie badge.The kids then go to a skating party where a snobby girl, Rachel, has Molly feeling pretty down on herself. Molly isn't given the luxuries that Rachel gets and she's embarrassed that her feet are bigger than Rachel's, so she takes a smaller skate size than she wears. All the other kids bring dads, brothers, and uncles, but Sonny brings his mom. He gets teased for this too. However, everything takes a turn in the end with Sonny's mom not being the embarrassment everyone expected and Molly getting a badge she didn't plan on.All in all the story is a painfully quick read, but it would be good for a read aloud with a younger child or a first reading chapter book. It's got more action than a lot of the chapter books for this same reading level. The characters are a little bit mean to each other, but it's kind of like things really worked when I was in school at least, and I hear they're much the same now.My daughter is very excited to read these books after hearing how much I loved them as a kid. She can't wait to tackle them on her own. I think they'll enjoy them because they're a good bend between action and easy, relaxing reading.
