Shoelaces and Brussels Sprouts
Peanut Butter and Jelly Secrets
Grapefruit Basket Upset
Alex series books #1, 4, & 10
by Nancy Simpson Levene

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children, Christian

Alex is a young girl (starts at around 8 years old and ages a bit through the series) who just can’t seem to keep out of trouble. Seemingly innocuous decisions have a tendency to snowball out of her control, despite her best intentions to get things back on track. Her patient parents help her to see what she could have done differently and what she should learn from her mistakes.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Secrets survived my childhood with me, and I read it so many times. I remember having such a sense of camaraderie with Alex back then. The dark places and heart-pounding situations that she got into felt very real. I could easily imagine myself having the same struggles trying to correct my bad choices on my own. There are scenes during which she snuck around and hid in dark places that have really stuck with me over the years.

My mom owned Shoelaces and Brussels Sprouts when I was younger, and while I don’t remember reading it as many times as my book, I still remember identifying with Alex. As an adult, I can see where it would have made her whole life easier by simply telling her mom about the incident that prompted her to tell the First Lie, which then snowballed into more lies. But as a kid, I know I made plenty of my own similar bad choices to try to save myself.

This was my first time reading Grapefruit Basket Upset, so I don’t know whether my view of it would have been different if I’d read it back then as I did the other two. However, the circumstance in which Alex finds herself in this book is also not one that I think I would have connected as much with back then. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so competitive as she is, and I definitely would not have made the one final, terrible choice she made (at least, I can certainly hope not). However, the story itself, and the lesson learned, is on par with the other two books.

This book series is pretty old, and I don’t think they’re in print anymore (first one came out in 1987). At some point, they came out with different cover versions, too, though I’m a fan of the originals. If you have an opportunity to pick up any of the Alex series books, I recommend them. They’re short, quick reads that children will be able to connect to.

Find out more about the Alex books

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If you’ve read any of this series, or read any in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!