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Ten-year-old Moxy Maxwell has not been practicing one particular part of her piano recital: the end. She knows what she’s going to wear and how she’s going to receive the applause she’s sure to receive, but when her song comes to the end, she doesn’t stop. She prefers to continue playing because she feels her song is too short.
Moxy’s music teacher knows this is a problem, but Moxy’s parents don’t because they have been preoccupied with work and a family emergency. Moxy’s sister, Pansy, is always finding lost things, though, and when she finds a “lost” note from the music teacher in the house, Moxy is told she needs to practice her song before the concert.
Moxy thinks she’ll be able to stop at the end of her song, but before she can prove it to her mother, she needs to do something much more important. The cape she will be wearing over her pink gobs-of-glitter dress needs a finishing touch that only she and her best friend, Sam, can carry out.
Although Moxy performed for an audience once before (last year she played cottage cheese in a food-group play), she is nervous to perform again. She is scared of making a mistake on stage. With some advice from her twin brother, Mark, and her aunt Susan, Moxy won’t have to cross any jobs involving the stage off her list of possible career paths.
Incorporated into Moxy’s story are several photographs taken by Mark. Shown in black and white, they are given funny titles such as “150 Cupcakes made by 1 Mother in 183 Minutes,” or they capture dramatic moments from the day, such as when Moxy’s green powdered-drink spill is captured in mid-air.
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano is the third book starring Moxy. Once again she gets sidetracked from something she is supposed to do and hears from her mother that there will be consequences. Moxy doesn’t disappoint, though. She tackles her problems by the end of each story, proving that not only can she do them; she can do them successfully!
Author Peggy Gifford has worked as an editor and a ghostwriter. She spends most of her time in New York City and South Carolina.
Valorie Fisher’s photographs appear in all three Moxy Maxwell books as well as in various museums around the world. Fisher has written and illustrated the children’s books When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy and My Big Brother. She lives in Connecticut.
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Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano (But She Does Love Being in Recitals)