Love Potion #11

Gr 4–6—All Cleo wants is for everyone to be friends again. After the events of The Popularity Spell, her former best friend Samantha is friends with a new group of girls. Cleo has a new pal whom she is getting to know better, and she's lucky to have the support of Larry, her best guy friend. Cleo schemes to get everyone's friendship back on track with the help of a love potion mysteriously sent from her odd uncle from New Orleans. When things don't go the way they should, Cleo's plans start to fall apart. The second book in the series is full of the same charm and fluffy middle school antics that readers of the previous volume enjoyed. Gallagher provides enough background from the first book so new readers will not have any problems jumping in. Cleo's single father, who is trying to get back in the dating game while raising a child, is realistic. The presence of a long-talked-about but little-seen character in the end leaves room for further installments in this "charm"-ing series.