I thought it was okay. I would read the rest of the series, but I wasn't quite as captivated as I was with her previous work.

2010 Maine Student Book Award Nominee

Cute, but not life-changing. I enjoyed all the vocabulary words.

I appreciated the overview of Victorian mental hospitals that this book provided, but I found the ending to be odd. An okay to good read.

I liked this better than the last one. We'll see what happens in the next!

Maine Student Book Award Nominee 2010-2011

I liked this book quite a lot, and it made me cry. Ivy June has been selected to part of an exchange program. She will spend time in Lexington, Kentucky with Katherine, and then later Katherine will come visit Ivy June in Thunder Creek. There are some culture clashes between the two worlds, to be sure. I must admit I had trouble placing the time period, and the only reason at times I could remember it was set in a modern era was the mention of cell phones.

Andrew Clements is coming to a conference in the spring, so I thought I ought to read some of his books before that happens. One of the books I chose to read is Frindle, a book about Nicholas Allen. Nick is a well-meaning 5th grader who has some ideas up his sleeve. When his teacher informs him that words are given meaning by two people agreeing, then he gets the idea to rename pens as "frindles." It catches on far more than he could have imagined.

While still retaining some hilarious moments, this book is mostly a disappointing continuation of the series. I was hoping for some evolution to be had for some of the characters, some signs of growth, and there wasn't.

I thought it was pretty cute, but not quite as good as Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

This book was much better than the previous one in the series, and leaps and bounds above the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid offering. I don't think I'm saying that just because Gina and I have uncomfortable similarities either.