Welcome to another MARVELOUS MIDDLE GRADE MONDAY!

This title was first released by Scholastic in 2017. This 2018 version from Peachtree Publishers has a new illustrator, with Poly Bernatene adding his own visual feast to accompany the story. For those of us who love books and bookstores, the tale weaves its own charm.

Property Jones is an eleven-year-old girl with a big secret: She can’t read. Her parents abandoned her at a bookshop when she was five for reasons never revealed. Luckily Michael and his mother Netty took her in and now they are family. Their bookshop though is not doing well. They can hardly believe their turn of fate when they win a contest with the prize being the greatest bookshop in London. End of story? Not by a long shot.

Mr. Montgomery, who built London’s fantastic book emporium has secrets as does Mr. Pink, the villain in this delightful easy to read novel. The bookshop itself is a fun, quirky, and fantastic place to look at books. There are rooms for different genres that rotate and appear like they are hanging on an invisible Ferris wheel. You wait for the door to open and enter. I’d fly off to London in an instant if there really was a bookstore like this.

Perfect as a read aloud or to read surrounded by your own books, THE BOOKSHOP GIRL wraps you up with its whimsical surroundings and doses of  humor reminding readers to never forget the power of a good story.

PUBLICATION DATE: 2018   PAGE COUNT: 135

FIVE THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT:

THE BOOKSHOP GIRL

1. Property is the type of girl you’d like as your own daughter or as a next door neighbor. She is resourceful and a problem solver. A fantastic female protagonist.
2. I like a cat with an attitude and here we have one of the best. Don’t mess with her or she may end up on your head.
3. Oh the irony… a girl who can’t read lives in a book shop.
4. Full page illustrations appear every 8-12 pages or so and they are a delight. The big eyes and revealing expressions of the characters will have you flipping through the pages to see them again.
5. The ending was expected but also perfect in its execution. Much to laugh at with many of the lines.

FAVORITE LINES 

Property Jones was left in a bookshop when she was five years old. Her parents walked out and left her there – just like that. She was found by Michael Jones, who was ten at the time, and who dutifully put her in the lost property cupboard.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sylvia Bishop

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR: Poly Bernatene

I was born in 1972, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and have been drawing ever since. I graduated from Buenos Aires’ Art School, where I developed a great interest in managing different techniques and enjoying my work, which has always been based on experimentation and diversity. Therefore my work is constantly changing and developing itself, looking for new ways to tell a story. In my own personal search for a style and field of activity, I have worked within advertisement, animation and comics. During the last couple of years, I established myself an exciting career as professional illustrator, having published more than 60 children books in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, UK, Australia, Denmark, Germany, France, China, Taiwan and USA.

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I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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