Eight-year-old Wednesday Wilson continues her quest to be an entrepreneur in this third book of this early chapter book series. Wednesday and her best friend Charlie are eager to spend an unexpected day off from school working on a new business idea—but one of Wednesday’s moms asks that they include Ruby Bajwa, aka Ruby Beautiful, her former best friend who ditched her unexpectedly to hang out with the popular but unkind Emmas.
Wednesday is unhappy, but Ruby’s brother Raj, who has thousands of followers watching his makeup tutorials on social media, happens to mention the latest cool fashion trend: semi-permanent freckles. Wednesday has her next business plan, and sets off with Charlie to launch “Frecktacular.”
Things go awry, as they often do, which is the fun of the story. Author Bree Galbraith keeps the action moving and continues to delight with Wednesday’s original voice and tidbits of business vocabulary and concepts, as applied to an elementary-school entrepreneur. More important that the business concepts, though, are the themes of friendship (formed, broken, and remade), communication, and perseverance.
Wednesday is mixed race and has two moms, one Black and one White, but their family structure isn’t the focus of the book. She also wears a button-down shirt and tie—along with Raj and his makeup tutorials, this offers some gender creative representation.
Light and fun, but with more depth and flair than many early chapter books.
