Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

That’s how I’m feeling about this morning, folks. (Also about Peter. He really does continue to recover, although he’s still not at all his old self.) I’ve done enough laundry during the week that I have time this morning–I’m hoping–to do multiple book reviews, which is good. I’m certainly not going to manage SIX, which is the number of books I can think of that I’ve finished and are waiting to be reviewed, but more than one ought to be within my grasp! (One hopes. Although one did not get to bed as early as one should have last night, so the tired is now one’s enemy.)

My most recent completion involves the second book in a series by Heather Vogel Frederick that both of my older girls have started; I can pass it along as soon as I’ve reviewed it, and thus it’s doubly first in line. Frederick’s ‘Pumpkin Falls’ mysteries take place in New Hampshire, which is automatically a draw for me–although Truly, the narrator/main character, struggles with moving there. (She lacks a proper appreciation for New England, but I’ve got enough for both of us.) In Yours Truly, she experiences her first sugaring season through her new friends, but cut sap lines are fast causing a town feud; on the home front, the way her male friends are flocking around her visiting cousin makes her feel invisible. I honestly found Truly on the whiny side in this one–as well as a fairly awful big sister–but I can appreciate where she’s coming from, and thirteen is a rough age. She and her friends are an engaging (and enterprising!) group, however, and I think middle graders should enjoy this one.