Other editions of book The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods

Amanda Woods is discovering that there are some things in life you just can't change, like who your parents are or how your older sister treats you, but she is determined to change what she can. To begin with, she's not going to be just plain Amanda Woods (the girl her mother seems to think is just average). She's going to be Amanda K. Woods-someone who is proud and strong and sure of herself, someone who can have a French pen pal and a best friend of her own choosing, someone who finds four-leaf clovers and can get perfect scores on her math homework. There is more to Amanda than anyone else can see, things about her that Amanda herself doesn't even know yet, but she's finding out. In The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods, her first novel for older children, Ann Cameron presents a heroine who is philosophical and honest as only a twelve-year-old can be.

Amanda Woods is discovering that there are some things in life that you just can't change, like who your parents are or how your older sister treats you, but she is determined to change what she can. To begin with, she's not going to be just plain Amanda Woods (the girl her mother seems to think is just average). She's going to be Amanda K. Woods - someone who is proud and strong and sure of herself, someone who can have a French pen pal and a best friend of her own choosing, someone who finds four-leaf clovers and can get perfect scores on her math homework. There is more to Amanda than anyone else can see, things about her that Amanda herself doesn't even know yet, but she's finding out. In her first novel for older children, Ann Cameron presents a heroine who is philosophical and honest as only a twelve-year-old can be.

The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods was written by Ann Cameron. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to people of all ages. This book is especially enjoyable because of its characters and its extremely powerful theme, be yourself and don't allow other people to change you. The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods takes place a while ago more or less in 1954, in Rome, Wisconsin. Amanda is a 12-year-old girl who faces many problems to discover who she really is, what she should be, and why things are the way they are. Some of the problems she encounters will maybe never be clarified or solved. Like why her mother loves to change people and make them what she wants them to be, or why her sister is always depressed and mean to her. Although Amanda faces problems that make her sad she also deals with situations that allow her to discover her real self. The whole plot of this book revolves around the characters. In this book you find out about many different characters and their characteristics. I really liked reading about the characters, it is one of the reasons I enjoyed this book. Like Lydia Woods, Amanda's mother. She wants people to be who she wants them to be, especially her two daughters, Amanda and Margaret. Lydia wants her daughters to be everything she wasn't when she was growing up. She obligates her daughters, especially Margaret who is older, to do whatever she wants. She doesn't allow her daughters to give opinions on what they want to do. Lydia also excludes people if they are poor or not as socially high as they are. Margaret was raised by her mother, so she grew up to be who her mother wanted her to be and not what she wanted to be. Margaret gets depressed when she lets her mother down, she blames it all on Amanda. Margaret is all very insecure and she won't stand up for her opinions only when it is against her little sister.

Amanda feels awkward in her family; her older sister is a wonderful student and always pleases her mother. Now to top it all off her only friend has moved to Montana, leaving Amanda alone to make a new friend, improve her schoolwork, learn to talk to her dad, get along with her sister, and make her mother happy. No easy task, but Amanda is much more perceptive and intelligent than some people think.