The Waffler — Gail Donovan

When one boy waffles back and forth, it's going to take a few little kidsâ€"and one pet ratâ€"to get him to finally make a decision.

Monty is a wafflerâ€"he can never make up his mind, which always gets him in trouble. But when each student in his fourth-grade class is assigned a kindergarten buddy, Monty takes some left-out kindergarteners under his wing, even though it's against the rules to have more than one buddy. When his blended family and his teachers find out, they give him an ultimatum: choose just one buddy, or have none at all. That stinks! On top of that, his beloved pet rat escapes, and his twin sister stops speaking to him! Monty doesn't want to cast away his new friends, but he needs to come to a decision before everything spins out of control. With laugh-out-loud humor reminiscent of Andrew Clements, Donovan gets the agonyâ€"and the tremendous funâ€"of elementary school perfectly.