by Mark David Smith, Illustrated by Kari Rust A fun-filled mystery packed with puns and homonyms. Three witchy sisters move into Covenly and open a pet emporium. But then things get weird. A threatening note appears at their door, a neighborhood goat goes missing. And whatever happened to Chelsea Oh’s casserole dish? A delightful cast…
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3 stars A hilarious collection of interconnected stories, comics, and infographics. Perfect for fans of anything Dav Pilkey and Mo O’Hara‘s My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish series. Venture to Creep’s Cove and meet the students of Stubtoe Elementary. From Frankie, the fringe scientist, to Quade, the politest sasquatch you’ll ever meet, to Lizzie the reptilian kaiju with anger problems, and…
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3 stars A fun epistolary series for young readers. Told entirely through letters, notes, newspaper articles, and reports, this book is full of mischief, humor, and blossoming friendships. A writer who hasn’t written in 20 years, a ghost who wants to be published, a boy whose paranormal-researcher-parents distance themselves from his assertions that ghosts are…
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4 stars A nice graphic novel adaptation of I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967. This story has been one of my favorites so far in the series (You can read my review here ). Nice balance of showing the dangers of grizzly bears, but also what humans can do to avoid dangerous interactions. There is a…
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5 stars A fantastic follow-up to the first book. Wonderfully written with unforgettable characters. Same charm as the first book with additional characters (along with old favorites), new adventures, and new problems to solve. In this one, the Vanderbeekers forge new friendships, reunite with established friends, make some unexpected discoveries, and band together to beautify…
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3 stars An interesting story centered around the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. This is the first book that I’ve read in the Girls Survive series and overall I enjoyed it. The writing is pretty simple and lacks some finesse, but I think it does a good job of making history appealing to young readers….
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3 stars Hooray for the first girl lead in the series! Tarshis does address this in the backmatter but… Personally I wish Tarshis would stop hanging onto the explanation that she wanted to write books her sons would read and they weren’t interested in girl characters. I hate this excuse. Can we all just admit…
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2 stars Cute follow-up to the first book. This one sees the trio of Glitter Dragons back in the Magic Forest, using their smarts and bravery to go up against the Shadow Sprites. This time, we follow the water-loving Willa as she gains the confidence to clean up the forest’s waterways. As with the first…
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4 stars This is my favorite book in the series of those I’ve read so far (Also, so excited to see another elusive girl main character in this series!). Tarshis nicely handles the respecting wildlife storyline that was so clumsily presented in I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916. I really appreciate that, though certainly dangerous,…
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2 stars Fun adventure story for young dragon lovers. Thrilled to see dragons as heroes and girl dragons at that! This story gives the origins of the Glitter Dragons sect of the Dragon Girls and recounts their first adventure together with Azmina acting as the leader. The writing is simple and straightforward. It didn’t resonate…
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