Review: Juneberry Blue

By Candice Ransom

Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishing Company Inc., 2024. Fiction. 289 pages.

Andie Jennings lives in a small town. Single-digit small. 8 people! Luckily, one of those eight is her close friend Tanner, who loves to go on adventures with her. Andie is prepping for her eleventh birthday, when she will face a test to see what kind of magic, if any, she has.

Unfortunately, her test day doesn't go as she had planned and Andie is crushed. However, there are some unexplained events that she starts to experience, and she has to wonder if her magic is different than the other girls in her family. She tries to distract herself by paying extra attention to Bunch, her little sister. Andie realizes the mysterious see-through cat she is trying to ignore, won't leave her alone, no matter how busy she is keeping herself. Eventually, she gives in and lets the cat guide her places she is afraid to go.

This book was a fun read with mystery, magic, ghosts, and beautiful fairytale feelings woven in. I loved the family relationships, the friendships, and the small town magic. For any tween who has worried about how they fit in, how to help their family, or if their story will even matter, I would recommend this book!

Comments

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...

Dragon Run

Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013. 336 pgs. Fantasy Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life. He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines. Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog