Candy Bunny Reader

So I gave this book a second chance and read it the whole way through! What did I think of it? Summer of Salt by Katrino Leno is a YA contemporary fiction novel set on a small island called By-the-Sea. The MC Georgina comes from the Fernweh family, where all the women are witches with supernatural powers, but she hasn't discovered her powers yet. Her twin sister, Mary, can fly (actually float), and their mother can make potions (actually regular drinks like teas and coffees with healing herbs in them). The family owns an inn on the island that is popular with bird enthusiasts, because everyone who visits the island come to see a redbird named Annabella lay her eggs every year. Annabella is rumored to be a Fernweh woman who turned herself into a bird for mysterious reasons.  One of these visitors is a girl named Prue and her older brother, Harrison. Georgina and Prue end up becoming close and even become girlfriends, but their joy is ruined when someone mysterious kills Annabella. E...

Summer is almost ending and school might have started, but you are never to late to read a cute summer romance with Deaf representation! Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino is about 17 year old Lilah, who has hearing loss (or as she will call it towards the end of the novel, "Deaf gain") and knows some sign language. She struggles a lot with lack of accommodations from her peers in the hearing world. The only place she's really felt like herself (although still feeling out of place sometimes) was at Camp Gray Wolf. It's a summer camp for kids and counselors with all sorts of disabilities.  Coincidentally, Lilah is trying to find a summer job, and she gets to be a junior camp counselor for Camp Gray Wolf. Being a camp counselor isn't easy, especially with the looming threat that their camp might get shut down due to lack of funding (they do start a fundraiser for it halfway through the book). But the highlight of her summer is Isaac--another counselor. As he tries to h...

 TW: Mention of a parent dying This is Morgan Matson's middle grade debut, and I had a blast with it!   Firefly Summer is about Ryanna, who lives with her father, who is a famous movie director, and stepmother. One day they get a letter in the mail from Ryanna's maternal grandparents, the Van Camps, whom she's never met. They want her to come to their vacation house to meet the rest of her late mom's side of the family. The vacation house happens to be situated it what was formerly a summer camp site, that was also owned by the Van Camps. Ryanna's father is a little relunctant to send her at first since he had a falling out with his in-laws after his wife's death, but when he sees a note in the letter that it might be the last summer the Van Camps might be able to get together as a family, he agrees to send Ryanna. It coincidentally happens to be around the same time he has to go to Hungary to film a new movie, too.  When Ryanna gets there, things get off to a...

  Have you ever had expectations for a book that were... just a little too high? Fun fact: I originally DNF'd (did not finish) this book a few years ago, but I decided to give it a second chance. Was it good the second time around? Well... The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall is a middle-grade novel about four sisters (oldest to youngest): Rosaline, Jane, Skye, and Batty, and their father, spending the summer in a cottage that is part of the grounds of a huge mansion. They become friends with the landlord's son, named Jeffery. They love each other's company, but Jeffery's mom thinks that the Penderwick sisters are a bad influence on him, and she has other plans for her son that he doesn't like. Along with their adventures with playing in nature, and playing with the pet rabbits of the groundskeeper named Cagney, the Penderwicks try to help Jeffery deal with his overbearing mother. This sounded like something right up my alley, and I enjoyed it for the most part, but ...