Stella Batts: Needs a New Name – Booktalking #kidlit

Stella Batts: Needs a New Name
by Courtney Sheinmel (Author) and Jennifer Bell (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Meet Stella Batts. She is eight-years old and she loves to write. She loves to write lists; like her favorite things and kids in her class. And she’s writing her autobiography. Stella’s favorite color is yellow and she LOVES fudge. As a matter of fact, there is a special fudge counter at her family’s candy store because fudge is one of her favorite things to eat!

But Stella has just one problem—her name. A boy from her class keeps calling her ‘Smella’ after she trips on their class nature walk. (‘I don’t even want to say what I landed in, it was too gross, so I’m just going to leave out that part.’). So Stella decides there’s really only one thing to do: she has to change her name. After all, how hard can it be to pick a new name? But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Snippet: I think it would be good to have a name that had a real nickname. Penelope is a way better name–it sounds kind of sing-songy, and Penny is the prefect nickname for it. But Stella isn’t a sing-songy name. It only has two syllables, and it doesn’t have any good nicknames. I got to be the older sister, but Penny got to have the best name.