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Nessie Quest

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Nessie Quest
By Melissa Savage
New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, 2020. Fiction.

Ru, or Ada Ru, or Adelaide Ru Fitzhugh if you want to use the long version, is pretty sure that she's finally convinced her parents to take a family vacation to Disney World. Imagine her displeasure when her parents decide to spend the entire summer in Scotland instead. Instead of wandering around EPCOT and the Magic Kingdom, Ada Ru has to wander the banks of Loch Ness eating Scottish delicacies like haggis and black pudding -- yuck! Luckily, she quickly befriends Dax, a cute Brooklynite with a passion for 1970s folk rock, and Hamish "Hammy" Bean, a local Nessie enthusiast who lures Dax and Ada Ru into a hunt for Loch Ness' most elusive resident. As the kids become invested in the famous Nessie Race - the hunt for proof of the sea monster's existence - Ada Ru finds a lot to love about Scotland after all.

As she did with Lemons (2017), Melissa Savage has written a humorous, adventurous, at times wacky, hunt for a cryptid - and has balanced it with some real-world, real-heavy issues. That she is able to write quirky, real-feeling kids going through different challenges, is a real testament to Savage's understanding of children and their relationships. I especially appreciated that though Hammy Bean is blind, it is never his defining characteristic, an intentional choice by the author. Because this book is set in Scotland and many characters use a Scots dialect, I would recommend listening to the audiobook for maximum enjoyment. Whether your young readers believe in Nessie or not, they'll love this book.

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