Author: Barbara Ann Bonilla
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1-4787-1543-6

“Home schooled in her White castle, this child was bored to tears, yet now that she turned twelve years old she’d shed her childhood fears. Her life was mostly lonely, just she and Papa John. Wendy dreamed and longed for the day she could move on,” Barbara Ann Bonilla writes in her children’s book, The Wacky World of Wendy White – A Whopper of a Tale.

This thin paperback book is forty-one pages with artwork of a girl fleeing from a castle on the front cover. The back has a couple of paragraphs about the book, reviews, and the author’s biography and photograph. With no profanity or scary situations, it could be read as a bedtime or quiet-time story for ages of preschool and early elementary school. The author also illustrated the book, using paint, ink, and some cut-out designs.

Bonilla must think and eat in rhyming – the entire book of three chapters is a tome in rhyme that is not only silly and fanciful, words are hidden relating to restaurants and candy names. With some words too complicated for young readers, adults may smirk at the limericks and how well-known products are blended into the storyline.

The tale is of Wendy White who is lonely and bored in her father’s castle so ventures out to find her friend, Denny. The first chapter is about her journey going east, through mountains, villages, and a town where the dreaded bully, Orville, lives. On her travels, she meets a hobo, an old lady and Orville’s twin, Jack, along with finding Denny.

In the second chapter, Wendy is introduced to Denny’s large family that includes eighteen children and two adults. In rhyme, each family member is mentioned along with their personalities, and the girl enjoys brother Carl’s cooking. Her father finds her, meets everyone, and takes Wendy back home but they continue to keep in touch with the large family.

The final chapter announces that Wendy’s father and Denny’s mother get married, complete with food choices served and dancing. In the end, Wendy and Carl later get married and name their first born son Carl III.

Although the book is charming with the rhyming, some intentional misspellings and sentence structuring may be confusing for beginner readers. The concept of finding restaurant and candy bar names is clever and unique but there is no helpful guide in the back listing all the names to find or their locations.

This book was furnished by the author in lieu of an unbiased review.

Follow Here To Purchase The Wacky World of Wendy White! a Whopper of a Tale