Anastasia series by Lois Lowry

Anastasia Krupnik is the central character in a series of children's books by Lois Lowry. Over the last two days I re-read Anastasia Again!, Anastasia On Her Own and Anastasia at this Address (that's the good thing about kids' books) and I just LOVE this series! I always have, and spent $17 in delivery alone on ebay to buy as many of them as possible already (admittedly, the books actually only cost me 99c!).

The characters are fantastic, funny and flawed. Anastasia's adventures as she grows up are hilarious and true to life, and the interactions of her family - father Myron, English professor at Harvard, mother Katherine, artist and stay at home mum, and little brother Sam - are some of the best I've ever read. Especially her brother Sam, who is a child prodigy and absolutely adorable. She loves Frank (her fish), her wallpaper, her turret-bedroom and writing.

The series goes through Anastasia's life as she moves suburbs, makes friends, has a girl-crush on her gym teacher, semi-falls in love with Steve Harvey, tries to find a career... a lot happens to her as she grows up, but this is unlike other growing-up-in-the-burbs books. Through it all you see her excellent sense of humour, intelligence dotted with moments of far-flung scatterbraininess, and overall it leaves you with a sense that the world is really a good place.

And we could really do with more of that, couldn't we?