Julie & the Blue Guitar

American Girl is starting a graphic novel series called Mysteries Across Time! 

In the present, Emma finds Julie's journal in a thrift shop. She gets sucked into Julie's world and the mystery of the blue guitar. 

I liked Emma and lot and I've always loved Julie, but I was a little disappointed that we got a slightly changed version of Julie's silver guitar mystery instead of something new. 

But whatever! I'm nitpicking. I'm thrilled to have some new historical content from AG and the art was super cute. I hope to see many more of these and the new journal style series in the future. Don't just do the more modern girls, AG! 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Kavi

 
Ah, Kavi, the American Girl who shares my birthday. The book opens on Kavi's 12th birthday and her Didima (father's mother) has given her four tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. (They live in NJ, so it's a train ride away.) Kavi is already interested in music and dance, so when she sees the show, she's even more enamored with the theater. 

Kavi only has this one book, but it's essentially split into two stories. The first has Kavi struggling with school. She gets distracted easily and with her mother starting a new full-time job, Kavi is more on her own when it comes to organizing her life. After a couple bad incidents come up at a parent-teacher conference, Kavi realizes she needs to ask for help more often. With that improving, she's able to focus more on the student revue, which she's dancing in alongside her best friends, Pari and Sophie. After she falls during the first rehearsal and wants to quit, they have the inevitable friend fight, which is very, very mellow in terms of AG friend fights. Kavi realizes she still wants to do the show and things end up just fine. 

In the second story, it's spring semester and there's a musical to get excited for. Kavi has a good audition, but can't beat talented Alaina, an eighth grader who's very good at singing, emoting, projecting her voice, etc. After initial disappointment, Kavi and Alaina get to be friends. Kavi and her friends also help Didima with her brand new cookie business. The drama of the story comes when a tree branch falls on the roof of their auditorium after a blizzard. The theater kids work together to raise money to rent the local community college's theater. They don't make enough, but after Kavi and some of the others go to the people at the college, they're given more time to raise the rest of the money and they're able to perform Annie in the theater. 

I liked Kavi and her family a lot. It was great to see Kavi going with her dad to yoga because it helps her focus. I always like it when the dad is more of a character. So frequently, he's the less there one. This time, both parents and Didima are quite present. Rishi, the younger brother who wants to be a doctor, is both appropriately annoying and amusing. 

Friend-wise though, the books failed. I enjoyed the nods to Indian culture from Kavi's family and Pari's, but Sophie is only mentioned as "not Indian," we never see her family, and she feels like a shadow of a character because she's the least developed. Even personality-wise, Pari is far more developed. Sophie's just kind of there. We know she likes hip hop dance, painting sets, and she can't sing. That's basically it. For as much as the friends were there, Sophie needed to be developed more. 

For the musical drama, my first thought was to hold it at the local high school. I read pretty fast so I may have missed it, but I feel like that idea should at least have been thrown out there before jumping right to "Hey, let's have it at the community college where it'll cost us five grand." 

And finally, my biggest issue with the book. Kavi's learning disability is never clarified. She's never diagnosed with anything. Her father had something similar, as does another boy in her class. But no one does any sort of official anything for Kavi. Kavi's parents would be younger than I am. I grew up when ADHD was just starting to be noticed more often, so her parents definitely know it's a thing. The fact that they do nothing for her beyond make her more organized schedules and have her get help from the guidance counselor kinda blows my mind. I thought this was going to be the ADHD rep GotY, but they don't even say ADHD in the text once. There's nothing in the back of the book about what you can do if you're struggling at school like Kavi. That deserved a few pages. Come on. This was very disappointing because AG needs to commit to saying she has ADHD. Give the kids some clear rep, not just dancing around the subject. 

Overall, I enjoyed Kavi as a character and the book was fun, but the ADHD failure was a pretty large one, in my opinion. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Claudie Book 2

My review for this book is essentially the same as the first one. I love the characters and the author does a great job with characterization and plot considering the length, but again, the book is WAY TOO SHORT. 

In this one, Claudie is one her way to Georgia to visit her maternal grandmother for the first time. 

She faces the biggest difference between the north and the south during this time period: the blatant racism and danger of the south. 

Most of her time in Georgia is spent dealing with racism, climbing trees a couple times, and learning a bit more about her mother and why she's a reporter. 

Back in Harlem, Claudie has finally found the inspiration for her skit, and she begins work on the variety show immediately. She works hard as the director to bring everything together and do a lot of advertising to boot. And it works! Her skit comes last and Gwen the painter comes up to her backstage right before it to tell her that she saved the boardinghouse. Claudie is so happy that she's almost not nervous onstage. 

Claudie spends a lot of both books thinking about her talent and what it could be. She finally realizes some people are just good at multiple things and not everyone needs a singular skill to make them talented. But she also learns she wants to be a writer and continue to tell her stories. 

I would love to see a third book about Claudie. I wish they were still doing the longer mysteries that BeForever got so we could spend more time in her world. They really screwed her over when it comes to writing. And her collection is pretty small, too. Ugh. Stupid Mattel. I applaud the author for doing such a great job with the short length she worked within. She made me want the doll, which I plan to order sometime this year, along with Dizzy Dot and two outfit sets. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Julie

JULIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm a big Julie fan. I cannot reiterate enough how wild it is that I let these reviews go unfinished for so long. But I am glad that my last brand new AG historical mystery reading experience is going to be with Julie, because her newest mystery is one I never read. I really wish they kept up with the mysteries. I miss the historical cast. 

Julie was the ninth historical character released. I remember very fondly seeing her in AGPNY for the first time. I picked out Ivy as my first doll in 2007 and it took me until 2009 to finally get Julie. I bought a lot in between. I'm not sure why it took me so long to finally cave on her, but she remains one of my big faves. 

Just for fun, this is the picture I took in AGPNY in 2007 when I first saw her and it was this look that made me want the doll. 

Julie's first three books are mostly about her dealing with changes in her life. Her parents are divorced and she, her older sister Tracy and their mother move to a new apartment above the store their mother has opened. Julie is upset to be moving away from her father, her pet rabbit (the new apartment is no pets) and her best friend Ivy, who lives across the street. She's also changing schools, so she has to try to make new friends. She meets a boy, TJ, who plays basketball with her, and she figures she can try out for the team, but the coach says no girls on the boys' team. Yet there is no girls' team, so by the new Title IX, she should be allowed to play. The coach remains difficult, so Julie gets 150 signatures on a petition. He throws it out in front of her and later, she and TJ dig it out of the trash. She takes it to the principal, and he brings it to the school board. Julie is then allowed to play on the team. (I thought that a bit odd, because she should have at least had to try out. What if she sucked?) 

In her second book, Julie has an autobiographical class project that she struggles with, because she doesn't want to talk about the divorce as the worst thing that ever happened to her. She breaks her finger in a big basketball game and initially talks about that in her tape-recorded project, but in the end, she tells the class about the divorce. 

The holiday third book is about the new differences Julie and Tracy deal with as Divorced Kids (as Kristy Thomas would call them). Julie handles herself much better than teenage Tracy, though Tracy finally reconciles with their father. Julie spends a lot of time with Ivy and we learn about 1970s Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown. 

The fourth book finds us in spring and Julie and Ivy discover a baby owl in the park. They bring it to a wildlife rescue where it's sent on to a vet. While there, Julie sees a pair of bald eagles who lost their home due to housing development. They have two babies but they're not doing well in captivity, and one ends up dying. Julie fights to get money for the eagles to be rehabbed outside and slowly integrated back into nature. She celebrates her birthday on the same day the eagles are released. 

Julie finds herself celebrating the Bicentennial in her fifth book. Her dad flies her and Tracy out to Pittsburgh, where they join this huge wagon train that's travelled west to east, aiming for Valley Forge. They ride in the wagon with their aunt, uncle and cousin April. Julie loves the Little House books, which she even brought with her, and she wants to try riding a horse, but her first experience doesn't go well. She's riding bareback and April lets go of the rope so the horse bolts and Julie is thrown into a river. She could have been seriously hurt but none of the adults take this seriously. Then she's mad at her cousin (rightfully) and scared of the horse (less rightfully, as it was her cousin's fault, not the horse's) for a bit. She finally just gets over it, but this was the stupidest thing in her books. So unrealistic. Then the wagon gets stuck and they have to leave some of their stuff behind. Also unrealistic that it's made it the entire way across the country only to have weight issues now. Then Julie and her cousin ride the horse ten miles away and ten miles back to collect the signature of the oldest man in Pennsylvania. They've made up and Julie is over her horse fear. The scroll with his signature is stolen and of course Julie is the one to get it back, so she gets to shake hands with President Ford at the end. Definitely by far the weakest of Julie's books. She goes too heroic and the adult reaction to her falling off the horse was highly unrealistic. 

In her sixth book, Julie is back in school and now in the fifth grade. She's made a new friend, a deaf girl named Joy that's the new girl this year. Sadly, a lot of the other students are too afraid of her to befriend her. When Julie and Joy are unfairly sent to detention and have to write sentences, Julie realizes detention is useless. She and Joy decide to run for president and vice president, even though it's always been a sixth grader who's won. The only other candidate is sixth grade's most popular boy, who's as useless as writing sentences in detention. Though the girls struggle with sexism and ableism, Julie and Joy come out on top, even winning over the Water Fountain Girls, who like the sign language Julie taught them and finally see Joy as a person. I enjoyed this one. There's regular human drama, but it's not the family drama of the first three books. My only real criticism is that the teacher never sees that she was wrong for giving the two girls detention when Joy was just asking Julie to explain something she couldn't lip read. You try lip reading "Sacajawea," Mrs. Duncan. 

Julie is best when she's at home dealing with her family and friends. That's when she shines the most. The eagles were an okay departure, but the wagon train book was pretty horrible. She's still a very loveable addition to the historical cast and it was nice to see the 70s included in the line. Ivy is also one of my faves of the best friend cast and Joy is great, too. As is TJ really. He's no Stirling, but he's a good guy. 

Ivy's book is great. She's having minor issues with her family. Her mom is in law school and her dad works two jobs, so they get food from the grandparents' restaurant a lot and Ivy is tired of Chinese food. She misses when her mom cooked and had time to talk to her. Same with her dad. She's got a family project for Chinese school and neither of her parents makes time to talk to her. She's also envious of her brother and how well he does in everything. 

Then she's got a gymnastics tournament coming up and she's weak on the beam, because she fell last time and has lost her confidence. 

A new conflict comes up when she realizes her family reunion is the same day as her tournament. Her dad basically demands she go to the reunion because he apparently pays zero attention to her and knows nothing about her life. Her mom sticks up for her and says how hard Ivy worked, how she's part of a team and that this is the all-city tournament so it's kind of a big deal. Yeah, law school Mom still pays attention. Ivy's dad kinda sucks and doesn't really redeem himself. He says he realizes how important it is and stops pressuring her to pick the reunion but still. 

Ivy chooses her tournament and then skips the pizza party after so she can come to the reunion. Duh. How come nobody figured that out before? She kicks butt in the tournament, wins medals, and the team gets second place overall, so she finally gets some confidence. And at the reunion, she sees what a great family she has and appreciates them. 

I liked everyone in Ivy's book except for her dad. I wish he'd had a scene to redeem himself a bit and show that he is involved in his daughter's life, but it didn't happen. 

Julie's first mystery is a good book, but a fairly simple mystery. There's a new girl in class named Carla and it's quickly obvious that she's been telling lies. She talks about having a big family, living in one of the famous Painted Lady houses, having a really smart dog, and working with her doctor/detective father on a case. 

Julie takes a little too long to fully confront Carla and get the truth out of her. I would have done it much faster. Turns out Carla's dad abandoned his family, they're poor because her mother is trying to go to school and work, and she has one older brother who is a wounded Vietnam vet. 

Julie doesn't forgive Carla immediately, but she does invite her and her mother to the Thanksgiving gathering Hank and Julie's mom are planning, which includes more of the wounded vets. Julie gets Todd, Carla's brother there, and even thinks of a plan to help the family, though it isn't realized in the book itself. 

It's a good book but only an okay mystery. Like I said, it's super obvious that Carla is lying. The mystery is the why.

I'll be including the Beforever covers for these because they're pretty. 

The original cover has a confused Julie leaving Carla in her Painted Lady house, which isn't actually hers. 

The Beforever cover features Julie looking at her "pet" spider. She really wants a dog but can't have one and she misses Nutmeg, so she adopts a spider living outside her window. I love the row of Painted Ladies at the bottom. 

This one is so great. Julie finds an old note written in Chinese in some clothes donated from Chinatown by Ivy's grandmother. When she brings the note with her to dinner at the Happy Panda, Ivy's grandmother is overjoyed and tells her story. She came over from China in 1919 and was held at Angel Island, where a lot of Chinese immigrants were detained. They were questioned incredibly thoroughly, even very young children, to prove they had relatives in the US, as the immigration policies were becoming stricter and only relatives were allowed in. The note was a coaching note written by Ivy's grandmother's mother, who never made it to the US and died while Ivy's grandmother was still being detained. She's thrilled to have some piece of her mother returned to her. She'd thought she lost the note and never saw it, not realizing it slipped into the lining of the jacket Julie found it in. 

Then the mystery comes in. There are lines in the note about a doll precious to Ivy's grandmother, saying she sleeps with it every night and she should give it to her father when she gets to the US. Ivy's grandma says there wasn't a precious doll, as she was too old for dolls, but a simple rag doll made by one of the village women to accompany her. 

That night, Ivy's grandparents' place is robbed and the only things taken are Julie and Ivy's dolls. They find Ivy's with her head popped off in the trash behind the restaurant. Julie's is found later in the trash by Ivy's Chinese school.

Smart Julie realizes the thief thinks something special is inside a doll. She remembers Ivy's grandmother was supposed to bring a valuable jade necklace that was her father's so he could sell it and get money they needed in the US. But without the coaching note, Ivy's grandmother never saw those lines about the doll and she left it with her orphan friend from the journey over. Julie realizes the jade necklace was inside the doll.

So the search for Mei Meng, Ivy's grandmother's friend, is on. Julie and Ivy eventually find her, but the thief gets to her house before they do. He isn't able to steal anything though, because Mei has brought the doll with her to the hospital, where she's recovering from a fall. They open the doll and find the necklace. 

Julie finally figures out who the thief is and confronts him. There were a couple decent red herrings and it isn't super obvious right away who it is. 

A good mystery with some great history on Angel Island and the struggles of being a Chinese immigrant in the early 20th century. 

This cover isn't nearly as good as the orignal. Julie's making a weird face and there isn't even anything doll-related on it. 

This one is not my favorite. During a benefit auction, TJ gets a job working for the rich people who are holding the auction. That's the big WTF of the book right there. Mrs. Vernon may be Julie's mother's friend, but why would rich people who have a huge, expensive collection of rare objects pick a random kid to have access to their house just to feed their cat? 

TJ's interested in the silver guitar owned by his favorite, now-deceased guitar player, so he takes it down to hold it, the cat jumps on him, and it breaks. When he and Julie go to get it fixed, the music store owner is pissed because it's clearly not a real guitar. So now Julie and TJ are on the hunt for the thieves. 

They have their usual suspects: the lazy nephew who lives with the Vernons, the housekeeper who lied about why she had to go out of town, the busybody neighbor, the kid from the music store who wants his own guitar and has been following them, and even the Vernons themselves. But no, those are all wrong. It was Julie's former upstairs neighbors, photographers who were in the house taking photos for the next auction catalog. They get hired to take photos of rare items, figure out what they can most profit from, make fake replicas, swap them out, and then sell the real things and move on to their next victims. 

It's just not as good as the other mysteries. It was mostly on the boring side.

Lost in the City has Julie parrot-sitting over spring break. Ivy's uncle has given the Lings his African Gray parrot, Lucy. He's not happy about it, but it's what his soon-to-be wife wants. After seeing how Lucy bonded with Julie, the uncle asks her to pet sit, while the rest of the family is off to get him married. Julie happily agrees. 

On the second day, Julie finds the window and cage open and Lucy is nowhere to be found. She starts searching and soon has a decent list of suspects. 

First, there's the older couple who are staying on the lower floor of the Lings house while the wife recovers from...surgery, I think? The husband is kinda rude and says something to make him a suspect. 

Then there's Julie's vegetarian, vaguely hippie aunt, who's staying with Julie's dad while she looks for an apartment near her new job. 

Finally, there's Gordon, a former classmate of Ivy's who's moved nearby. He's unhappy because his parents are getting divorced. His biggest red flag is that he needed a new jacket and commented that it would take a long time to save for one, then suddenly he turns up in a super expensive leather jacket. Julie thinks he sold Lucy for the jacket money. 

It's not a bad mystery, but it's no Paper Daughter. 

I'm finally going to read the last Julie mystery! As mentioned, I have never read this. It's my final unread AG historical book featuring the older characters. Sigh. 

Paper Daughter is still my favorite Julie mystery, but this one is an easy second. 

Julie and her mom are off to a commune near Sonoma that was started by Julie's aunt Nadine and her husband David. They learn David lives in town now, thanks to an injury from Vietnam. Nadine wasn't happy he went to war, so they're hovering around a divorce, leaving their son Raymond, who's around Julie's age, very unhappy. 

The commune is struggling with money. The only other kid around Julie and Raymond's age is Dolores. She's older, but I can't remember by how much. But she's working at a cafe in town. David has a job in town and an apartment. Raymond sadly doesn't see his dad as much as he wants to. 

There are two mysteries. The first is all the random weird happenings around the commune. The chickens get out. The clean laundry hits the ground. The calf goes missing. 

The second is the mystery of the nearby mine. Raymond and Julie hear tapping in there, and Julie finds a red bottle with a message inside that looks quite old. 

There are several suspects, but I had it figured out pretty early on. Doesn't mean it's not a good story though! 

And that wraps up Julie Albright, I'm sorry to say. I really love Julie. I've got Claudie's second book that I'm going to read next and then I'm done with AG historicals until Isabel and Nicki's book comes out in a few months. Wah. I want more historical stuff. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Melody

 
Well, this has certainly been a long time coming. I intended to add Melody to my AG historical reviews years ago, but I never got around to finishing her mystery. And because I never finished Melody, I also never finished Julie, so I have not one but two AG mysteries I've never read! Time to fix that. 

I just finished rereading No Ordinary Sound. It's definitely a powerful book and it made me emotional a few times. I'll do a quick cast list before moving on to the plot synopsis. 

So we've got 9-year-old Melody, whose varied interests are singing, gardening, flower arranging, and cars. It's only mentioned a couple times briefly, but Melody is really into cars. Well, she IS from Detroit. Heh. 

Melody's mother is a teacher and her father is a factory worker. I'm not sure what exactly he does. He was a really good mechanic as part of the Tuskegee Airmen, but even in 1964 Detroit, better jobs for black people aren't plentiful. 

Melody's grandmother was a singer, who now teaches piano and voice lessons. Her grandfather owns a flower shop. 

Melody has three older siblings. Yvonne is in college down in Tuskegee, where both her parents went. Dwayne is supposed to go to college but wants to pursue a Motown career. Lila is the family scholar. She's good at math, science, reading and basically anything academic. 

Then there are Melody's cousins, two parents and their daughter. The mother Tish owns a salon and her husband Charles is a pharmacist. Thier daughter Val is Melody's best friend.

Her other best friend is named Sharon. Then we've got her rival Diane, who also sings.

We've basically got most of the book featuring the daily life of this extended family. Melody gets a solo in the fall church program. Yvonne comes home for the summer and is refused a job at the bank because she's black, so badass Melody marches in and closes her account, saying exactly why she's doing it. Yvonne ends up kicking ass in sales at their grandfather's flower shop, so he hires her. Dwayne struggles with his parents wanting him to go to college when he has Motown opportunities. He moves out right before an audition, which his group does well enough at to go out on tour. Melody's cousins move to Detroit from Birmingham due to all the race-based violence. 

There are several incidents of racism throughout the book. Yvonne's failure to get hired at the bank, as I mentioned. Dwayne and Melody being profiled when they're just trying to shop. The cousins having trouble finding a home to buy because of racists in the neighborhoods. All of the men struggle with job-based racism. 

Inspired by MLK, who she got to hear speak, Melody finally figures out which song to sing for the fall program. She practices and earns the respect of Diane, her now former rival and new friend. 

Sadly, then the Birmingham church bombing happens, and Melody is profoundly affected by this incident and the death of four little girls. Medically, it would have to be coincidence, but she develops laryngitis the same day she learns of the bombing. After she recovers, she freezes on the steps of her church and can't go inside. She loses her voice again, not from medical reasons, but because she's so utterly freaked out by the bombing that she's terrified of her own church and overwhelmed by her feelings. 

With the help of her friends and family, Melody regains her voice and is able to sing for the four little girls who no longer can. 

I really enjoyed this book and all of the characters. It can be hard to read at times, but that is how historical things are. It's important to tell these stories and not shy away from the truth, in hopes that someday we'll be better. I really wish I could say things were a lot better now than in 1964, but the same problems still exist in ever-shifting forms and that's what makes these stories hard for me sometimes. 

Melody's second volume is mostly more light-hearted. On her New Year's Day tenth birthday, the pastor encourages his congregation to help make positive changes in their community in the new year. Melody eventually decides to help clean up her neighborhood park. She and some of the other kids form a Junior Block Club and set to work on their project, which takes up most of the book.

Val's family finally gets a house. 

Everyone participates in a protest against the store that profiled Dwayne and Melody in the first book. 

Melody sings backup for her brother on his first song to be recorded on vinyl. 

Melody, her mother and grandfather, and Val all take a trip to Alabama to visit the old family farm, which Melody has never seen. It's mostly gone, but there are memories. Then they visit her grandfather's older sister and it's there that they learn Yvonne has been arrested. She's been working with the Freedom Summer campaign to help black people get their chance to vote. Naturally, groups like the KKK don't like that. Three students were murdered and the book references that incident, though they're still missing in the events of the book. It's mentioned in the notes at the end though. Yvonne broke her wrist during the arrest, but her mother and grandfather got her out of jail. She doesn't want to stop working for the cause though, so she'll be getting right back to it. 

This one was good, too, but not the emotional roller coaster of the first book. 

I really want to like this. I do and I don't from different points of view. 

Melody accompanies Val and Tish to a meeting of the Fair Housing Committee on Belle Isle, a big island in the Detroit River. There she meets Leah Roth, a 14-year-old Jewish girl whose mother is also on the committee and friends with Tish. Melody is instantly wowed by Leah because she's very fashionable, but she's also nice. Val isn't a fan, though she won't say why. 

Melody starts a friendship with Leah, though it causes a rift between her and Val. Val won't ever give a concrete reason as to why she doesn't like Leah. Her excuses have a million holes. I think it's basically because she doesn't want to share Melody, but she already shares Melody with Sharon and Diane, so what's one more person? The whole Val doesn't like Leah plotline was pretty weak. 

Melody meets Leah's grandfather, a Polish botanist who was trapped in the ghettoes during the Nazi invasion. He managed to get to the US with a clipping of a rare lady's slipper orchid, but his ill treatment ruined his health forever. He's only 68 but he isn't doing very well, and Leah is very upset about his health. She's found a doctor in New York who might be able to treat him, but it's expensive and her grandfather isn't willing to try. 

There's a flower show at the conservatory on Belle Isle and Melody's grandfather is taking part. The guy in charge comes across as racist, so of course when some rare orchids are stolen, this asshole points the police to Melody's grandfather because he'd caught the two of them in the orchid room and been pissed about it. 

Melody and Val go to the party that night determined to look for clues to clear Poppa's name. Leah and her grandfather are also in attendance, because he's giving a talk about orchids. He's brought his very rare orchid and Leah is all worked up about it. She ends up knocking it over, the conservatory guy tries to rescue it, another guy tries to steal it, and both Leah and Melody try to stop him. Everyone gets carted off to the police station, where Leah's story comes out. The thief is related to the man that helped Leah's grandfather get to the US with the rare orchid. He's an unscrupulous plant dealer. He sees how Leah cares about her grandfather's help and it's him that shows her the article about the doctor in New York, trying to get her to help him steal orchids so they can split the profits. She assisted him in the theft of the first ones from the conservatory, but she tried to stop him from stealing the lady's slipper. Her grandfather basically tells her he's lived a full life and he's ready when the time comes, so she needs to accept it. Melody's grandfather's name is cleared. 

From a character standpoint, I really liked this. Leah is likeable when she's not being a thief. Her grandfather is awesome. I liked how they told about Jewish people helping black people with civil rights issues. All of that was done well. Val is out of character and her storyline really doesn't add anything to the book, so it felt unnecessary, but everything else character-wise was good. 

Oh, one thing that I didn't like. This book is clearly set a year after her second book. Melody turned 10 in that book, yet she's said to be 10 here. She isn't. She's 11. Work on your math better, author.

As a mystery though, this is terrible. It was very apparent from the second time you saw this red-haired thief that he was gonna be the bad guy and that Leah was involved. Once Melody learned the grandfather's story, it was equally apparent what Leah's motivation was. It was too obvious. 

Overall, I enjoyed Melody's books a lot and I'm glad I finally got around to finishing them. 

American Girl Corinne

 
Well, I've had Corinne's books sitting around for about a year. I'm sad to say she just didn't interest me much. 

Corinne is a bit of a frustrating character because her key problem in both books is communication. So you see that she learned nothing from the events of the first book if she's once again not communicating her feelings in the second. 

Corinne lives in Aspen with her younger sister Gwynn and their mom. Their mom is shortly going to get married to Arne, who's a wealthy businessman of some kind. He's Swedish. Corinne's mom wants to open a Chinese restaurant in Aspen. Corinne's dad is a skin instructor at a nearby resort. They're divorced. 

Some of the tension in the book involves this weird idea of Corinne's that she's not supposed to talk about Arne around her dad and vice versa. Her mom's clearly been dating Arne for a while, so I'm not sure how she thinks any of that is an issue. It's not like Arne is a new thing and if they've been divorced for a time, there shouldn't be an issue of hurt feelings. And there isn't. It was all in Corinne's head. 

There's also tension with the girls moving into Arne's house, which was done by a professional decorator. He's not sure how to handle two kids there and there are some new rules for the girls, but everything works out well. 

Gwynn wants to be an ice skater, so Arne pays for her lessons. Corinne doesn't know what she wants to do. She enjoys winter sports like skiing but doesn't want to get serious about them. Then she sees a rescue dog in action and decides she wants to train one. Arne is not pleased with the idea of a dog but gives in and they get Flurry from a shelter. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of yet another dog-training book. Ugh. Nicki was one of my least faves. But the training is actually interesting and doesn't take up too much of the book. 

Corinne has a best friend named Cassidy who doesn't like the snobby rich girls who get new things all the time. One of them happens to be an ice skater so Corinne has this ridiculous idea that Cassidy will think poorly of Gwynn for getting lessons. This is another just plain stupid idea that is all in Corinne's head. As if Cassidy is going to spontaneously dislike a child that she's known for years just because he's getting lessons. Come on. 

Not talking about her feelings ends up with a big blow up between Cassidy and Corinne in the stands at Gwynn's first competition. The loud noise makes Gwynn falter during her routine and a guilt-ridden Corinne runs away and proceeds to get lost on one of the mountains, trying to find a necklace Gwynn had left as part of their sister shrine. (The shrines are explained in the book. I'm not doing it here.) Flurry ends up finding her and the day is saved. Corinne finally talks about all her feelings and everything is resolved. 

Now there is one thing that I thought they did really well. Corinne is Chinese-American and this is set during covid times, so she endures multiple incidents of covid-inspired racism against Chinese people. She tries telling Arne but he blows her off a couple times and she finally tells him that this is serious. He sheepishly explains that he just wants her to be happy so he tried not to dwell on it, but she solved that problem. There's also a great scene where her mom tells off a couple asshole racist adults. If Corinne was able to talk about all her issues as well as she handled this, there wouldn't have been a plot, but she would have been a better character for it. 

The second book is set in summer. Corinne is still training Flurry, just not with snow-based things. 

One of Corinne's problems this time is the fact that she and Gwynn were supposed to have separate rooms but decided to share instead. Corinne did it to help Gwynn adjust to living in Arne's house. But now Gwynn is pretty annoying and Corinne is about to ask for separate rooms when her mom drops a bombshell: she's pregnant. Apparently, rich Arne somehow only has three bedrooms in his house so poor Corinne is stuck and this issue is never mentioned again. Sigh. 

It's replaced by a new problem: will Arne love the baby more because it's his kid? See what I mean about Corinne not learning anything? Also, both this and the "don't talk about dad in front of stepdad" feel like things a younger person would think, not someone Corinne's age. 

Corinne pressures the family to do their usual summer camping trip. Arne is not much of a camper and he's worried about his pregnant wife, but she's into it, so off they go. Things are going well until a canoe trip where there's an accident. The family (and Cassidy, who's along for the trip) all make it to shore, but they lost their water, Arne injured his leg, and Mom vomited and is going to be on the road to dehydration soon. It's up to Corinne, Cassidy and Flurry to follow Arne's topographic map and make their way back to camp so they can get the rest of the family rescued. Corinne is presented as capable of stuff like this, which is why her worries seem much more immature than the rest of her character. The girls make it back, despite a rockslide and a mountain lion, get help and save the day. 

Three months later, the baby is born and all is well...except they named him Blix. Like seriously? There's a scene where Arne mentions he's considering Love (pronounced the Swedish way) as a name and Corinne points out he'll be teased. She's not wrong. But she doesn't say a word about Blix? It's a goblin name! (It is. In the 80s fantasy movie Legend.) According to several pages I read looking it up, it's also primarily a feminine name. Definitely an odd choice on AG's part. There are so many Swedish names that aren't so out there. 

Overall, Corinne's books aren't terrible but they're far from great. Gwynn is on the annoying side and of all the characters, I think I actually liked Cassidy, who's not even part of the family, best. Mom is pretty cool, too. Corinne's problems are in some cases handled well, but mostly they're too immature for her and she clearly learned zero lesson from the first book. Not their best work. 

American Girl Claudie #1

I finally got around to reading Claudie's book! 

I think the easiest way to review this is to break it down. 

PROS: 

1) Excellent characters. I really enjoyed every one of them. I'm impressed they were so well characterized in the short number of pages this poor author had to work with. 

2) I like this time period so it's always good to read more about it. 

3) The author doesn't shy away from the bad things that happened in history during this time. I learned a couple things I never knew about. 

CONS: 

1) LENGTH. This is the book's biggest flaw. I can't believe the author would limit herself in such a way, especially when she's working on a dream project, so I imagine this is some poor corporate choice. This is easily the shortest historical book that we have. It's shorter than GotY books, ffs. It begins with an introduction from the author that takes up five and a quarter pages. It ends with historical notes that take up eight pages. The actual story? A measly 71 pages. And some of those are full-page illustrations. Not that I have anything against illustrations. I love them. But this book is way too short. I'm highly impressed that the author was able to characterize her fairly large cast well enough to make me like them all in such a small number of pages. She does an excellent job with that. She also does a great job of telling some of the historical things that happened. What suffers is the environment. NYC is a character in itself and so are all the neighborhoods that make it up. You love the people of Harlem in this book, but you don't get a chance to fall in love with the setting of Harlem. I would have loved to have seen this be twice as long. There are so many opportunities for added characterization and more scenes out in Harlem itself. It's very disappointing that someone at AG thinks this is an appropriate number of pages to devote to the Harlem Renaissance. 

2) This is another corporate complaint. This book doesn't exist in paperback. You're forced to buy the $16.99 hardcover. And then it's as short as it is. WTF, AG? 

3) One major historical inaccuracy bothered me. There's a note at the front about certain words used to describe Black people being used in this book because those are the words that were used in the 1920s. They're not appropriate now, but those are the words they would have said then. That is perfectly acceptable and the right way to write a historical book. However, Claudie's father is a WWI vet. It's mentioned at least a couple times in the text of the story itself that he was in "World War One." Um, no. This book is set in 1922. They would never have called it World War One. They didn't know there would be a second one! So that took me out of the story the few times I saw it written that way. If you're going to write as if you're in the 20s when it comes to people's words for themselves, then stick with that all the way through. 

4) The second one doesn't come out until next year and there's a lot of important stuff that was left hanging. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this and I wish it was twice as long. Claudie, her fellow cast, the author, and most importantly, this time period deserve better than what AG is giving them. 

I may end up with Claudie. And the dog. And some of her outfits. Next year!

AMERICAN GIRL: Courtney

 

I'm not sure how, but I really thought I'd reviewed Courtney's first book and I never did! Agh. I read it back in November, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I can say for sure that the book and the cute art and the nostalgia all combined to make me want the doll. I haven't gotten her yet, but I certainly intend to. 

Courtney is something that's been a long time coming: a historical girl from the 1980s. This made less sense in, say, the 90s, but now that we're in 2021, an 80s girl definitely qualifies as historical. 

Courtney's first book introduces us to her world. She comes from a "blended family" (as it's called on American Girl's item page for the book). Only child Courtney's mother married a man with an older daughter, and then together they had a son. So both Courtney and 13-year-old Tina have a 2-year-old half-brother named Rafi. Courtney struggles with sharing a room with Tina, who's a typical bratty 13-year-old. She's really quite mean, though a lot of her pain comes from seeing Courtney with her mother. Tina's mom died when she was quite young, so she sees all these mother-daughter moments she'll never get. She's still not a likeable character, but you understand why. Mostly. 

Courtney likes to play video games in the arcade, as shown on the book's cover. Her best friend is named Sarah and they have another friend, a boy called Kip. 

One of the plotlines is that Courtney's mom is running for mayor. Not the most interesting thing, but definitely different. 

Another is that Courtney is working on a big project for school. She sees hardly any female characters in video games, so she plots her own game with her main character being a friendship space superhero named Crystal Starshooter. 

And then we've got Courtney's dad moving 3 hours away for work, so she won't see him as often. She struggles with that, but I liked the close relationship she and her father have.

The Challenger disaster is also covered in the book. 

Courtney's second book only recently came out (like I just got it yesterday) and it's far heavier than the first one. 

After taking part in Hands Across America, Courtney wants to spend her summer doing big things that will inspire the continuation of Crystal Starshooter's adventures. She goes on vacation with her father and then when she's home again, she meets a new friend named Isaac. He's a video game whiz and he quickly fits right into Courtney's friend group. When school starts, Isaac and Courtney are in the same class, while Sarah and Kip are in another. 

There's only one major issue in this book: Isaac has HIV. He's got hemophilia and ended up getting infected during a large blood transfusion. These were the early days of AIDS when it was more hysteria and misinformation than fact, something Courtney fights against during the rest of the book. She sees Isaac forced out of school, though that's illegal in California and his family fights it. She sees other kids being taken out of school and people who don't think he should attend, including Sarah. Courtney is appalled by Sarah's behavior and they stop talking. Parents begin protesting. Courtney herself is victimized for being Isaac's most visible friend. The entire situation is really traumatic from her point of view, but she realizes how much worse it must be for Isaac and keeps on being his friend. She spends a weekend with her dad and they research HIV/AIDS together. Courtney decides to do her upcoming class current events presentation on it and comes armed with a flyer full of facts for each person in her class. But despite her particular class's improved understanding, the situation keeps escalating until an assembly is called. Courtney's teacher asks her to do her presentation for the class and she breaks down from all the stress and fear. After more time with her dad, she returns and ends up doing the presentation...sort of. She combines forces with her friends and they make a video of Isaac talking about himself and his experiences and that's what Courtney shares with the whole school, along with copies of her flyer. In the end, Isaac comes back to school and is mostly welcomed. I'm sure there are still dissenters, but they're no longer mentioned. It's a heavy topic and I thought they handled it well.

The secondary storyline is Courtney's fight with Sarah. They originally stop talking over Isaac, then make up, but then Courtney forgets a choir performance because she and Kip decide to take Isaac to the arcade. Courtney doesn't tell Sarah because she still wants nothing to do with Isaac. So Sarah's pissed because she sees it as Courtney choosing Isaac over her. Courtney eventually explains that Isaac needs her more, but admits she also was a bad friend to Sarah. Yeah, no. I think she apologized too much and Sarah not enough. Ugh. Not a fan of Sarah. 

The highlight of the book for me was Courtney getting a Pleasant Company catalogue in the mail. She becomes obsessed with Molly because she relates to her instantly. A dad 3 hours away isn't the same as a dad at war, but for a kid, even small similarities can be relatable. (I related to Molly because I also wore glasses and I didn't see a lot of dolls or characters with glasses.) She shows the catalogue to her mom, who says Courtney is more of a stuffed animal girl and then pretty much says no to Courtney asking for Molly for Christmas after seeing the $75 price. Courtney shows the catalogue to Sarah (this is before the HIV storyline begins) and Sarah falls for Kirsten. Clearly here we have the most unrealistic thing in the book. Neither girl is into Samantha, who was decidedly the fan favorite from the start. I remember. I was there. I turned 8 in 1986, so Courtney is only 2 years older than me. Courtney goes to the mall on one of her visits to her dad's and she buys Meet Molly. The Molly storyline disappears into the background, but resurfaces when Courtney is really upset over the Isaac situation. Her dad surprises her with Molly and she's thrilled. Then later after making up, she shows her to Sarah. I'll admit this is self-indulgent of the company, but they do have a long history and I don't mind them inserting themselves into the 80s books because it's not like it wouldn't be relevant. 

So yeah, Courtney is a blend of 80s fun and seriousness. I really loved both books and I hope they do more with her. I plan on getting her doll, the splatter-print dress, the cardigan, maybe the suspender skirt, and definitely mini Molly with that tiny replica catalogue!

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Joss

Ah, I've finally caught up and gotten all the GotY books read! 

Joss is this year's and her books are in yet another new format. Illustrations are back  HOORAY. And the art in her book is cute. 

Erin Falligant has done a lot of lesser writing for AG, but Joss is her first big character work and I kinda hope that's all she gets. The books are not especially well-written. Joss is partially deaf, so there's a lot with her different methods of communication that I thought was interesting and handled nicely, but there are other bits I had issues with.

As you can tell from the cover, Joss is a surfer. The first book has her wanting to enter a contest to meet her surfing hero. She and her best friend are teaming up to make a video and one of their competitors is Joss's kinda jerky older brother. She's also got an even older brother who's super awesome. 

To win a bet and gain her jerky-yet-video-skilled brother Dylan's help, Joss has to audition for the cheer team and make it. She doesn't have to join the squad, just get in. So she accepts and does indeed make it. Then she starts to realize she likes it, which causes a lot of tension between her and her artistic surfing BFF who feels left out. My only issue with this is that it's honestly not that well explained WHY Joss is suddenly into cheer. She sticks with it because her eldest brother's girlfriend is on the senior team and she (Reina) says that the skills Joss works on in cheer can make her a better surfer. As the book goes on, we see more why Joss is interested, but that initial decision to accept her place on the squad comes kinda out of nowhere. 

Cheer, by the way, isn't like stereotypical high school cheerleading, rahrahing the boys' team on. It's a more organized, athletic sport. Although wearing giant bows on their heads still seems stupid to me. 

So the book has Joss and her BFF getting into the inevitable fight. Her BFF gets really mean about things. The fighting part of this book is pretty serious and the making up doesn't seem to equal the badness of the fighting. 

Naturally, the girls make up, Joss and Dylan make up, they all work together and win the video contest and Joss stays in cheer.

The second book finds Joss preparing for a cheer competition and the school talent show. She gets roped into having her bulldog do skateboard stunts for the talent show (the dog does enjoy skateboarding already so it's not out of nowhere) and that ends badly, leading to a rift between Joss and her cheer teammate Brooklyn. 

Then after a bad run at a more dangerous surf spot, Joss's confidence is shattered and she's afraid to do her trick as her cheer team's newest flyer. I had issues with this part of the book because I felt the other characters all forced her to finally agree to try the harder trick, but when you're doing dangerous stuff, it's important to take your time and build your confidence back up naturally. Not because your teammates are giving you shit because you're letting them down by not trying for the stunt that gets them the most points in competition. I didn't like the other characters' motivations or the way they handled this situation. It really was not a good message for the readers. There's this whole bit about how we're a team so one person doesn't get to decide what we do. Well, if that one person is the one being held above all the others doing the most dangerous stuff and she doesn't feel safe, she's got a fucking right to say so. 

So yeah, I wasn't impressed with Joss. The best characters were Liam, Joss's eldest brother, and his girlfriend Reina, who's pretty awesome. And Murph the dog. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Blaire

 
The 2019 Girl of the Year was Blaire Wilson. 

Blaire lives on a farm, which supports a bed and breakfast run by her grandfather and a restaurant run by her mother. In the first book, her father is working on renovating the barn into an event space. 

Blaire is a cute character. She feels like a modern girl with her reliance on devices more than past GotYs, but it's not really a bad thing. Just a modern thing. 

Blaire has many "idea-sparks" about cooking, designing, event-planning, you name it. 

The first book has her trying to keep her grandfather from moving. She overhears him tell a friend that he's against the barn event space idea and is considering retiring. Of course he was just talking and it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, but Blaire throws herself into helping plan her favorite farm worker's wedding. The wedding needs to be done quickly so her brother can give her away at the altar before he goes on military leave. 

Blaire naturally gets into some friend drama by ignoring her friend in favor of wedding prep, but to be fair, said friend did volunteer to help with everything and then did basically nothing. I'm not a huge fan of Thea. She seems like another rather selfish BFF character. Thankfully, Blaire's books are loaded with other good characters to make up for Thea's suckiness. 

While the first book is a little stereotypical and fluffy, the second really succeeds. Both are well-written. I like this author's voice a lot. But the second has Blaire getting caught up in too much planning again, though this time it's for her 5th grade community service project. That's the kind of thing you want to overextend yourself on because it's for a great cause. 

No friend drama with the girls this time, but Blaire struggles to befriend a shy, standoffish new boy in her class. 

Blaire's newly-diagnosed as lactose-intolerant and she struggles with this in both books. 

I really enjoyed both of these. They seem very realistic with less once-in-a-lifetime big ideas than some of the past GotYs. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Gabriela

 
Hey, look, it's the Girl of the Year 2017. Oh, poor Gabby. They did you wrong. 

Gabby is a multitalented girl. She's a dancer in various styles as well as a poet. She struggles with a stutter, which is less focused on in this first book, though there are a few incidents with it.

The main plot of Gabby's book is her helping to raise funds to reopen her mother's community arts center, where all her non-school classes are. It's a good book with a lot of great moments and I love the cast. Shakespeare-loving Isaiah is my favorite. 

The only flaw for me is the poetry. She's into poetry. There are a lot of poems in the text. I get it. I'm just not into poetry at all, so they bore me.    

This was easily the best of the three books for me. Gabby learns her best friend Teagan is going to a special STEM school instead of the same one as Gabby, so she feels like she'll be alone against her nemesis Aaliyah. On the first day, Gabby and Isaiah, along with all the other sixth graders, are pelted with water balloons and they learn that sixth grade initiation is a thing. That sparks Gabby to run for sixth grade ambassador, so she can work to unify the school and end initiation. The annoying thing about this book is that the initiation itself should have been stopped by adults. Pelting younger kids with water balloons and leaving them post-its with mean nicknames that can last forever is flat-out bullying. It shouldn't take a student's efforts to stop this. The book has a nice resolution and Aaliyah actually is an interesting character once you get past her "you hurt my feelings so I bullied you to hurt you, too" mistake. 

  The third Gabby book is written by a different author, though you'd never know it. This one has Gabby taking on too much. Her ballet class is preparing to go en pointe, she's working on a solo and a duet piece for a poetry slam, and she's got to make not one but two Halloween costumes while also working on the class Halloween festival. She goes back and forth while considering a very large decision and also dealing with Teagan, who's now jealous of Aaliyah. 

Gabby's books are pretty good, though as I mentioned, the poetry element never captures my attention. Like at all. I like everyone as a character for the most part. Gabby's books make me wish they'd occasionally do an additional book for the friend character. I'd like to get into Aaliyah's head in her own story. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Tenney

 
So here's Tenney, who we talked about in Z's entry. 

I'm sorry, but you can't convince me this girl wasn't supposed to be GotY. FOUR BOOKS? FOUR? 

So Tenney is from Nashville. Her full name is Tennyson Evangeline Grant, which is pretty awesome. Her entire family is musical. Dad owns a music store. Mom runs a hot chicken food truck. Dad, Tenney and her brother are a band, though you don't hear much about them after the beginning of the first book. Tenney is a singer/songwriter who wants a career in music. 

Book 1 is her struggling with her parents not wanting her to start her music career yet, despite her getting a really good opportunity. 

Book 2 has Tenney struggling with handling critique and dealing with a drummer/musical collaborator who she doesn't get along with. She's also got friend drama, because she's supposed to be helping best friend Jaya (on the cover there) with a fundraising effort for Jaya's cousin in Bangladesh whose school got damaged by a tropical storm. Jaya is getting more help from Holliday, a girl Tenney doesn't trust because Holliday is frequently mean to her. 

Book 3 is pretty much Tenney vs. Logan. Now that they've signed a contract together to play as a duo, they've got to start really collaborating on original songs. Logan tends to not look very dedicated though and it's getting to Tenney. Turns out Logan has a lot of family drama going on. 

Book 4 is Tenney vs. Logan Round 2: This Time It's Christmas. 

All their problems get ironed out. The entire cast is honestly likeable, though the little sister gets annoying and Logan makes you grit your teeth constantly. They're decently written books, but they're just not very interesting. I'm not musical. I don't care about the songwriting process or performing or recording or any of that jazz. 

I don't feel that Tenney deserved four books. She's not that fascinating. I was more interested in Jaya and even Holliday. Tenney's books focus solidly on Tenney and put the friend characters almost entirely in the background. I would have liked a book that wasn't centered around music and instead actually added character development to the cast. 

With these books, a good writer combined with good characters and good development can make them work for me, even if the girl's chosen theme is something I'm not interested in. I know practically nothing about ballet, but I loved Isabelle. However, a lot of these more recent offerings have been failing at firmly keeping my interest.

AMERICAN GIRL: Z

Z is a different sort of American Girl. Suzanne "Z" Yang is one of only two contemporary characters that were released. These came alongside the regular 2017 Girl of the Year. There were criticisms of the other contemporary girl, Tenney, saying that she was originally supposed to be the GotY and Gabriela the second contemporary. This seems quite possible. 

I prefer Z to Tenney, because she's very similar to my favorite AG doll. It's nice to see a Korean-American character. 

Z is a filmographer who makes stopmotion videos featuring her American Girl dolls. She has a group of friends and online followers called Z's Crew. 

The first book has Z making her first "real" movie, a ten-minute piece for a competition. The second book has her on the road with her mother, a filmmaker, learning how to be an assistant. In both books, she makes error after error until she learns a lesson and then she succeeds. 

The books are a bit different because they're written by two different authors. 

They're decent, but far from the best in the series.

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Lea

American Girl of the Year 2016 Lea spends two of her books in Brazil. 

Lea's special for me. I remember seeing her at Kohl's and pointing her out to my mom. I hadn't read her books yet. 

Not too long after, my aunt passed away rather unexpectedly. My mom surprised me with Lea, saying she was a gift from my aunt, since I wouldn't be getting one that year obviously. When I started reading her books, I learned that Lea was from St. Louis...the city my aunt spent most of her life in. 

Lea's first book chronicles the first half of her Brazilian adventure. she and her parents are visiting Zac, Lea's much older brother, who's doing his senior year in undergrad as a study abroad. 

Lea and Zac have issues reconnecting, which stem from Lea's being a bit oversensitive when it comes to him and him being...well, an oblivious dumbass. 

Lea meets a girl her age, Camila, and Camila's older cousin Paloma, who Zac develops a crush on. Both girls and Lea's dad help Lea conquer her fear of swimming in the ocean, which she's never even seen before. 

Lea lost her adventurous, world-travelling grandmother not long before and her connections with Ama throughout the entire trilogy are nice. 

The second book finds Lea and Zac in the rainforest outside Manaus, staying with Zac's host family. After an accident in their previous location, Lea's dad is recovering from a broken leg and her mom stays with him, but everyone agrees Lea is capable of joining Zac for this next planned leg of their trip. 

Lea struggles with facing new fears. She wants to see Amazon wildlife, but is afraid of a nasty rooster belonging to Zac's host family and is even more afraid after an accidental spill off the side of a boat into the Amazon. 

Then Lea and Zac find a baby sloth in the rainforest. She's clearly injured and there's no sign of her mother. They rescue the sloth, Zac having emailed a professor who knows a wildlife sanctuary. But when Lea posts pictures of the sloth and tells the story, her best friend is angry that she interfered with wildlife. They work things out online, but Abby's another idiot. Her whole reason for being angry was that she thought Lea just took a baby sloth, not that there was no sign of the little animal's mother. Lea blames herself for not telling the story better, but shouldn't her best friend know her well enough to know she wouldn't do that? 

The third book is set back in St. Louis. Lea is excited that Camila is coming for a visit. The girls and Lea's best friend Abby are taking a children's photography course. Lea wants to become a better photographer, while the other two are beginners. 

When visiting a century-old house Lea's mother is resorting, Lea and Camila find an old photo of a girl wearing the same compass necklace Lea's "Ama" wore. This sets Lea off on a search to find out how this girl was connected to her grandmother. Sadly, she neglects Camila and Abby steps in to spend time with the Brazilian girl. I liked her a little better in this book, but she still makes Lea cry when she says Lea will never solve the mystery. Pretty nasty thing to say to your best friend who's still missing her grandmother. Why do these girls tend to have such terrible friends? Predictably, everyone makes up, Lea's photography is excellent, and they find the girl in the photo who tells them more about her past and her friendship with Lea's Ama.

I enjoyed Lea's books a lot, though they're far from perfect. The cast of characters is mostly solid and at least she does something different. Her rainforest experience is also very different from Jess's, which helps differentiate the two. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Grace

Vacation is the perfect time to knock out some more book reviews. I brought a ton of books with me. I always bring way more than I can read. I'm starting with trying to finish off my American Girl of the Year reviews, including some I've never read before!

I left off with Isabelle back in...February? Isabelle was the last GotY to have the older book format with lots of illustrations. Grace's book begins the new style that are basically just chapter books. The only pictures here are the ones on the covers. 

Mary Casanova is Grace's author. She also did Jess, Chrissa, and McKenna's books, and a couple mysteries, as well as Cécile: Gates of Gold, one of my precious Girls of Many Lands series. 

Grace was the GotY for 2015.

Grace's first book is set mostly in Paris. Her mother has to fly over to help her younger sister, who's about to give birth. Grace comes along for the 5-week stay. 

Grace's aunt Sophie runs a bakery alongside her husband Bernard. Bernard has a daughter named Sylvie, who's a year younger than Grace. 

Grace and Sylvie get off to a rocky start, but manage to patch things up once they finally both communicate to each other that neither has a good grasp of the other's language. 

The fourth book in the series, which comes only in ebook form, is Grace & Sylvie. This was written by a different author, but it blends seamlessly with the first book. 

Even though it was the last one written, I suggest reading it second. It tells a lot of the story from the first book only through Sylvie's eyes, so you really can see what she's going through. 

So Grace fixes things with her cousin and gets into the swing of helping in the bakery. She also spends a lot of time with a stray French bulldog she names Bonbon. At the end, Bonbon ends up coming home with her!

The second book picks up right where the first left off with Grace only just arrived home from Paris. She struggles with training Bonbon, who's been a street dog for who knows how long. 

Then she struggles with her friends. The three had planned to start a business together before Grace learned she was going to Paris. While there, Ella and Maddy began a dog-walking business, which Grace felt very left out of. To her mixed feelings, that ended up not working out, but she returned to the US with the idea to start a French baking business. Both her friends are slow to get on board. Neither is into baking. Ella's dad just lost her job, so she has no money to help buy baking supplies. Maddy's just...kind of a brat. She only wants to do things her way and she only really wants to do what she's good at (the more artistic stuff). (I swear, there are a lot of girls named Maddy in books. This one is the redhead.) 

The three girls eventually figure everything out with the help of their parents, Grace's grandparents and her older brother. 

The third book finds the girls' back in school with their business doing very well. Unfortunately, the bad things start to come. Maddy's mom brings them bad news about needing business licenses and an approved kitchen, which would mean Bonbon could never set foot in the family kitchen again. Not likely. Grace gets the idea to work from the kitchen at her grandparents' bakery and it's going great, with supervision from Ella's dad who's still out of work, until her grandparents announce that business is so bad they're going to have to sell. 

Grace brainstorms and gets an idea to revamp the bakery into one that looks a bit more French. (Of course.) People start to believe the girls' business has taken over the old bakery and with the orders pouring in, Grace's grandparents realize they need to team up. So both bakeries join forces and that saves her grandparents from having to sell and the girls from having so many orders they can't possibly fill them all. Ella's dad is also hired on as a part-time manager with the potential to go full-time, so that works out, too. 

Grace's books are good, but not the most enjoyable for me. I'm not into baking. Or French anything really. I do love a good macaron and a Napoleon, but I don't want to read about baking prep for pages and pages. I like Grace and Ella a lot, but Maddy never grew on me after her obnoxiousness in the second book.