7/10 ( )

Karen loves her roller skates and trying new tricks, but one wrong turn ends up with Karen at the hospital with a broken wrist. When she comes across a schoolmate who also has a broken bone and boasts about how many signatures are on his cast, Karen becomes determined to have a just-as-exciting cast when they both return to school on Monday.

The "Little Sister" line of the BSC is perfect for readers who love the series and want a little more, as well as for their younger siblings who aren't quite ready for the more advanced themes and vocabulary of the mainline stories but want to be in the know.

Like with the main BSC titles, these stories tackle fairly typical kid problems, generally showing good values along the way. Karen becomes overly competitive at one point in this book, but learns that it's more important to include others than 'best' them. She also exaggerates to make her story more interesting in her mind's eye, only to discover that folks like her actual story.

Also, I always appreciate that Karen's story shows divorced and re-married families, complete with a stepfamily to highlight how family dynamics are not always cookie-cutter but can still work for everyone. ( )

I wasn't a fan of the first graphic novel because Karen was just sooooo bratty, but she's a much more reasonable child this time around, and I found myself enjoying this little tale about broken bones and truthfulness. A good book for introducing little kids to what goes on at a hospital when you've had an accident. ( )

Seven year old Karen, injured roller skating, winds up competing with a classmate over who can acquire the most impressive collection of signatures on their cast.

The story is fairly slight but the illustrations are cute and I appreciated that Karen fibs, she loses her temper, her priorities are a bit off, etc., in other words, she isn’t perfect. ( )