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A review by shipwrecksteph
Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki
4.0
I received a free copy of this at NYCC 2019. Many thanks to Amulet Books/ABRAMS.
Where was the Lumberjanes franchise when I was a kid?
The characters are wonderfully realized. Each child is so specifically drawn, they could be no one else. You can tell who is speaking the dialog before the narration tells you. They are that distinct. They are also very representative of so many types of people. Each Lumberjane has different interests, energy levels, home lives, strengths, weakness...you name it.
The story is good but not great. Typical tween hijinks with weird happenings and freaky encounters. It's all made enjoyable if you like the characters.
My one gripe is that the narration has a habit of telling the reader how things are. "She decided to do X because people should be like Y. It's just better that way. Obvi." I don't know if that's standard in middle grade books, but to me it's annoying. The girls and their kind, generous actions speak for themselves. The examples they set seems more than powerful enough to get kids thinking about healthy ways to interact with the world. The narration telling me afterward how to think just seems like a pile-on. Then again, I'm not the target audience, so YMMV.
Overall I wish things like this had existed when I was a kid. Girls of all types getting to wacky adventures was not a thing in media 30 year ago. Glad to see today's kids will have better reading options.
-S
Where was the Lumberjanes franchise when I was a kid?
The characters are wonderfully realized. Each child is so specifically drawn, they could be no one else. You can tell who is speaking the dialog before the narration tells you. They are that distinct. They are also very representative of so many types of people. Each Lumberjane has different interests, energy levels, home lives, strengths, weakness...you name it.
The story is good but not great. Typical tween hijinks with weird happenings and freaky encounters. It's all made enjoyable if you like the characters.
My one gripe is that the narration has a habit of telling the reader how things are. "She decided to do X because people should be like Y. It's just better that way. Obvi." I don't know if that's standard in middle grade books, but to me it's annoying. The girls and their kind, generous actions speak for themselves. The examples they set seems more than powerful enough to get kids thinking about healthy ways to interact with the world. The narration telling me afterward how to think just seems like a pile-on. Then again, I'm not the target audience, so YMMV.
Overall I wish things like this had existed when I was a kid. Girls of all types getting to wacky adventures was not a thing in media 30 year ago. Glad to see today's kids will have better reading options.
-S