I had a towering pile of Apple Paperback books back in the day, and recently, through the Scholastic library, found myself armed with even more, which now make their home in my office. I love looking at the old book covers — from Hurricane Elaine to The Broccoli Tapes, so many memories live in these pages! Perhaps my most favorite of all, though, was Veronica the Show-Off by Nancy K. Robinson. So of course, I had to re-read for our #booknostlagia series!

To recap: Veronica is a new student who obviously wants to make friends, but she can’t quite figure out how to go about it. So she talks about herself…and the things she owns…and all the great stuff she knows about life…a LOT.

I only had vague memories about the plot, but I did particularly remember that everyone in Veronica’s class misunderstood her eagerness to share knowledge as something worse than it was. She wasn’t a bad person — she was just misguided!

My takeaway: Re-reading this book was a hoot!

Basically, Veronica means well, but is a total know-it-all.  (I mean, we’ve all been there, right?) These days I have a fondness for know-it-alls, especially girls — I think it’s important that we encourage kids to share their knowledge, raise their hands when they know the answer, and just generally be confident in what they know and think. But re-reading this reminded me how tough it can be, to have all these feelings swirling around your chest and no words to explain them. There’s one scene in particular that made me almost cry! Poor Veronica…

I had also forgotten completely about the second half of the book, in which Veronica uncovers a ton about herself in the local library, trying to solve a bit of a mystery, and learning — without realizing it — how to be a real friend. In summary: this book is charming and funny, and still has one of the cutest, most appealing covers of all time!

And I can’t leave this blog post without giving a shout-out to my favorite lines of the book:

“Stop sulking, Veronica,” her mother said.

“I’m not sulking,” said Veronica. “It’s my regular face.”

Do you remember reading Veronica the Show-Off?