Daisy Dreamer and the totally true imaginary friend by Holly Anna, illustrated by Genevieve Santos

Daisy loves to dream, imagine, and create. She has a cat, Sir Pounce, who is good at solving mysteries and a grandmother, Upsy, who understands her love of spinning stories and daydreaming.

She loves her quirky teacher Mr. Roberts and her best friends Jasmine and Lily. She does not like snooty Gabby, who she has to sit with at school and who rips a page out of her special journal! But then the imaginary friend she drew becomes ALIVE. What adventures await Daisy and her friends?

This is very much a set up for a series and a typical beginning chapter series at that, although it is quite cute. Personally, my sympathies are with Gabby - not everyone enjoys answering roll call by barking like a seal and Daisy and her friends are quite snooty on their own, hiding in their special place so the other girls can't see what they're doing. Jasmine has dark skin and curly hair, but is only a supporting character.

The really strong feature of this series are the cute illustrations; thick black lines show the quirky friends, enthusiastic teacher, and pudgy imaginary friend becoming real.

Verdict: Nothing particularly outstanding, although the illustrations do shine. Add if you have a lot of Junie B. fans and are running out of books for them. Will also be popular where some of the more girly Branches titles circulate a lot, as this is about the same level with lots of illustrations.

ISBN: 9781481486316; Published 2017 by Simon and Schuster; Borrowed from another library in my consortium