A young girl’s mother is a very bad housekeeper, or so the girl thinks. One day her mom goes away for three weeks, so it’s up to the girl, Anastasia, her brother, and her dad to see about keeping the house up while dealing with the things that life brings. The question is whether she can handle it and how that time changes her view of her mom and her mom’s housekeeping ability.

“Housekeeping is simple,” Dr. Krupnik said. “Yeah,” said Anastasia. “Any moron could do it. All you need is a schedule.”

Anastasia On Her Own by Lois Lowry is not a new book, having been issued in 1985. It is part of a series of books featuring Anastasia. Anastasia is like most teenage girls: she thinks she’s always right, thinks that her mom is often wrong, and loves her dad. The situations she finds herself in are pretty realistic and are the types of things that a teen today would face. But Ms. Lowry has made the events funny by having them pile on top of one another in a way that would probably not happen in real life. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but humorous. Reading this book can make you want to read the other books in the series or other books by this author.

This book would be good for kids, mostly girls, ages 9 to 12.

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