Name that pre-teen book!

May 20, 2013 12:38 PM

I read this sometime in the 80s. It was a chapter book, just shy of YA. And it's title was something like "The 45th Thing I Love About Amelia" or "The 45th Best Thing I Love About Anastasia" (wrong number, wrong name). Oh, and at the end, the mom opens a closet door and there's a dead dog inside or something.

I think it was first person, told from the title character. It was primarily about a girl, her family and friends. Throughout the story, her mother (and possibly other characters?) list off things they love about her or something similar, which is where the title comes from.

A pet or some animal dies, and some of the characters hide the body in the closet. At the end of the book, the mom is saying something like, "the 85th thing I love about you is that you BLAH BLAH BLAH" as she is opening the closet door to investigate the smell that has been growing in the last half of the book, and then BAM -- book ends.

posted by hmo to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

Best answer: The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline by Lois Lowry!
posted by jeudi at 12:39 PM on May 20, 2013

As a side note Lowry also wrote a series about a girl named Anastasia. So maybe you didn't pick that name out of thin air?
posted by Wretch729 at 2:04 PM on May 20, 2013 [2 favorites]