Girl Around The World Diary

Moving to a new place can be daunting at any age, but when you're 11 years old and you move to a place as big as New York City... AND from all the way across the world, it can be downright unnerving! But nothing makes us feel more at home than making a new friend. So, when five fifth-grade girls from around the world are lucky enough to meet in Carla's after-school art class, AND become besties, it seems totally obvi to form the most awesome club in the universe, aka the GIRL AROUND THE WORLD CLUB. To make it really official, when the lucky new club members find an empty diary in the art supply closet, Carla (the best art teacher ever) allows them to turn it into their official club diary. Leilani, a beach loving "Surfer Girl Supreme" is from Hawaii and sometimes feels like a fish out of water in the big city. Valentine is the artiste from France whose dreamy drawings and impeccable style reflect that of her painter/fashionista Maman. Juji is the fledgling wildlife vet from Kenya who misses her baby Bintu, the elephant she helped raise in Nairobi. Winnie is the tap dancing Australian math and science wiz who left her Dr. Dad back home in Sydney to be with her bigwig mom in NYC. And Alejandra is the gymnast from Peru who loves to cook and shares recipes and ancient Peruvian wisdom from her family's restaurant. When their school decides to build a rooftop garden to help the environment, Carla's students are on decoration duty for the fundraising event. It's decided that the Girl Around The World Club will paint a mural based on the national flower of their countries, and the boys will make garden gnomes from recycled plastic bottles. But when disaster strikes and a huge rainstorm ruins the mural, the boys and girls must find a way to overcome their pesky antics and preconceived ideas and find a way to work together to make a new one. Will they finish in time? When the school year ends the girls will have to separate and travel to their own countries for the summer holidays. But they notice empty pages in their diary that won't be filled because they'll be miles apart from one another (sniff, sniff). So to keep their club alive the girls decide to create interactive prompts, including intriguing questions and paper dolls, and invite their "Imaginary new club members" to participate and join the Club, because "Everyone is from somewhere and has their own story to tell." Day by day, in their own colorful words and pictures, 5 girls from around the world share their discovery of the strength that lies in diversity and that the power of unity, kindness, and a little hard work just might brighten the world... one rooftop garden at a time.