The completely chaotic Christmas of Lottie Brooks by Katie Kirby

262p

A low-key family Christmas is in the offering until all the 'rellies' invite themselves to Lottie Brooks’ house. Lottie loves presents and the festive season but will she be disappointed this year?  What about the strain it will be on her poor mum – the family workhorse. Will Lottie Brooks’ new diary, Volume 6 in this hilarious epistolary series, prove her mettle?

Like most of Lottie’s close friendship group, the popular tween queen is obliged to hold her entire family in contempt for their corny Christmas traditions like “Elf on the Shelf” and her siblings embarrassing smells and gaffs. When her aunts and uncles arrive with 3yr old cousin, Frankie, exhibiting dark behaviours, she has bigger worries, like what gift to buy her classmate for 'secret santa' or her failure to inform her family that she has inadvertently invited an entire French family to Christmas dinner. Despite the allure of handsome Antoine (her new love interest), she is unable to rescind the Christmas holiday offer due to their language barrier. Does she prefer good old Daniel afterall? What a mess!

Katie Kirby’s final book narrated by Lottie Brooks reads like a multimodal diary including dates, times, text messages, thought balloons, lists - even stick figure embellishments.  The negative spaces for easy reading, and the quirky hilarious characters make this a quickly digested chapter book to add to the reading log.

Baby Bella shouting 'BUM' in public and Toby convincing Lottie that she had drunk his wee – thankfully a sibling prank, may take the shine off two weeks of no school!  But Christmastime for Lottie is guaranteed her most chaotic and amusing diary to complete the series: The extremely embarrassing life, The catastrophic friendship fails, The mega complicated crushes, The totally disastrous school trip and The majorly awkward BFF dramas. Readers particularly 9-13yrs, anybody with a family really, will find this chaotic Christmas instantly relatable.  

Themes: Family, Christmas, Epistolary novel, Romance, Friends, Humour.

Deborah Robins