In This Is Not the Abby Show, twelve-year-old Abby Green grap­ples with life’s ups and downs in Poco Bay, Flori­da. Abby has hyper­ac­tive ADHD. This caus­es her to be dis­or­ga­nized. Her school papers are often stud­ded with crumbs and her home­work is crum­pled. Paired with her spunky per­son­al­i­ty (she explains she will ​“do any­thing for fun­ny”) and lack of fil­ter, this caus­es Abby to fre­quent­ly find her­self in trou­ble — she’s con­stant­ly back­track­ing and apol­o­giz­ing for her unin­ten­tion­al­ly inap­pro­pri­ate words and actions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many peo­ple do not under­stand Abby; her nasty Eng­lish teacher, Mr. Fin­seck­er, chas­tis­es her in front of the class. After a revenge prank on Mr. Fin­seck­er goes awry, the cul­mi­na­tion of which Abby refers to as ​“The Night That Ruined My Life”, or ​“TNTRML,” she is sus­pend­ed from school and giv­en an F in English. 

As a result, Abby, an aspir­ing actress, is dev­as­tat­ed when her par­ents (who are busy prepar­ing for her brother’s upcom­ing bar mitz­vah) ground her, enact­ing new strict rules that require her to with­draw from per­form­ing arts sleep-away camp in order to attend sum­mer school. Sum­mer school starts out rocky but the expe­ri­ence brings unex­pect­ed things for Abby. In class, she finds cama­raderie with the oth­er stu­dents, form­ing unlike­ly friend­ships with three oth­er kids who have their own unique chal­lenges. Addi­tion­al­ly, the teacher uti­lizes uncon­ven­tion­al teach­ing meth­ods, which help Abby suc­ceed. As the sum­mer pro­gress­es, Abby learns the val­ue of accep­tance and kind­ness while still remain­ing the star of the show.

Author Deb­bie Reed Fis­ch­er paints Abby in a relat­able light. Despite per­son­al chal­lenges, Abby is a pos­i­tive spir­it who nav­i­gates tough sce­nar­ios with wit and spright­li­ness. Fis­ch­er infus­es a dose of humor into Abby’s escapades with snap­py one-lin­ers and hilar­i­ous scenarios.

This is a fun and ulti­mate­ly heart-warm­ing read. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 9 to 12.