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A review by leslie_d
Mo Wren, Lost and Found by Tricia Springstubb
3.0
Feeling displaced? Tricia Springstubb has the story for you in this sequel to the sweet debut What Happened on Fox Street. Mo has to move, and like many a moving story, the adjustments are hard. And she isn’t the only one who was going to miss Fox Street. (sigh). Fortunately, Springstubb creates the old kind of charm in a new kind of place. Maybe change can be for the better.
With a protagonist who thinks, and who worries, the moving is going to be especially dramatic, thus she will be a great narrator–a great voice for the worries that haunt us. How do we find our way around, make new friends, interact with the old friends, finesse the changes with family members who are changing, too, and survive a curse. Okay, the curse is more of the mysterious twist that moves the plot, and a brilliant explanation as to why things just can’t seem to go right—because we are all questioning Mr. Wren’s decision-making. But sometimes following dreams are not easy, whether they are yours or someone else’s.
The widower Mr. Wren was an absent sort in the first book, he continues to be so in this second novel as he struggles to fulfill the dream of becoming a successful restaurant owner. But in What Happened on Fox Street, Mo had her community to keep an eye out for her and her younger sister Dottie, for whom Mo is oft made responsible. His leaving Mo alone (and forgetting her once) is horribly problematic in Mo Wren, Lost and Found. He is striving to provide a life where she can have the opportunity to be a little girl, to be carefree. We just have to hope they all survive it. We have to hope that Mo again finds herself capable.
There are all sorts of lost objects and lost people and lost feelings and lost memories to be found. This is an ambitious little novel and there were moments I wondered if there was a little too much. We learn people move on. Change is hard but sometimes necessary and for a number of reasons. Sometimes we need to let things go for the sake of another person, to give someone else an opportunity (Fox Street, Parenting roles). New friends await, and could use the new face. And “Fortune favors the brave,” Mo and Da, the elderly neighbor from Fox Street, remind themselves rather determinedly.
As those people and objects that always held center for Mo Wren shift out from under her, we have Dottie who not only seems to be just fine, she’s thriving. Dottie is growing up to be quite capable and wise herself. But she has Mo. All Mo has to do is keep herself together, and find some new anchors, or perhaps remember some old ones. Maybe her dad will prove to be there for her after all? Maybe she will find a community of people she can depend on, a new extended family on East 213th.
Mo’s friend Mercedes is back, and is as issue-laden and self-absorbed with it as in the past book. Their dynamic is unusual in novels, though not unfamiliar in life; which is nice, even as it is uncomfortable. Besides being the BFF, Mercedes provides another perspective, another facet to this difficulty that is change—again. Pi Baggott reappears and is sweet and Mo is all aflutter. Yet there is an all-too-convenient (though not unrealistic) turn to accompany the other turns that facilitate Mo’s ability to move on. And while it is fantastic that the story doesn’t slough off Fox Street too easily, East 213th has a story and a character to develop as well. Mo and novel must move on. And the pacing in the progression of this move is good. As to how one speaks to the balance, it depends on the Reader. However, I don’t think the young reader will be overwhelmed; the thinking one might. We are meant to be overwhelmed. The tension is in the weight and the compounding of multiple anxieties. And just when we think it could all go right—finally!—no! Oh no!
Does Mo Wren find everything she needs, all she’s lost? Fortune does favor the brave–and bravery is needed. Because, in the end, Change is good. It’s necessary. Everyone benefits from the opportunity it brings in some form or another. Mo Wren, Lost and Found finds its optimism, its hope. Not that it was ever truly lost, as with many things, it just went missing for awhile.
***********************
Mo Wren, Lost and Found was a good sequel. It reflected back upon the first story in small ways, and was consistent with characters and voice, but Springstubb definitely worked to present a story that could be read on its own. The writing is good. As in the first novel, the clever metaphors are inspiring; a smile for the Reader. The characters, whether human, object, place, or lizard, feel original, and the eccentricities are charming. This is good middle-grade fiction. I can see openings for another installment. I liked What Happened on Fox Street a lot, and I enjoyed Mo Wren, Lost and Found, but I am not eager for another. While good, it was exhausting. I hope Springstubb is working on a new project, an other new project.
Mo Wren, Lost in Found should find connection with eldest children, more likely girls, the serious-minded, and those needing to be more serious-minded; for middle-grade, for anyone who has moved or will move or undergo a big change: though the end message is optimistic, Springstubb commiserates, it isn’t nor will it be easy [it’s refreshing that way].
Regardless of having read the final book in Lucky’s Hard Pan trilogy by Susan Patron recently, the series would have still come to mind (but please, for the sake of fairness, do not read these two series close together). Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, Lauren Child’s inimitable Clarice Bean books, Rita Garcia-Williams’ One Crazy Summer, Belle Teal by Ann M. Martin, and How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor come to mind as well. If you enjoyed What Happened on Fox Street and Mo Wren, Lost and Found, keep an eye out for these reads—even if you didn’t, you should anyway.
L @ omphaloskepsis
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/after-fox-street/
With a protagonist who thinks, and who worries, the moving is going to be especially dramatic, thus she will be a great narrator–a great voice for the worries that haunt us. How do we find our way around, make new friends, interact with the old friends, finesse the changes with family members who are changing, too, and survive a curse. Okay, the curse is more of the mysterious twist that moves the plot, and a brilliant explanation as to why things just can’t seem to go right—because we are all questioning Mr. Wren’s decision-making. But sometimes following dreams are not easy, whether they are yours or someone else’s.
The widower Mr. Wren was an absent sort in the first book, he continues to be so in this second novel as he struggles to fulfill the dream of becoming a successful restaurant owner. But in What Happened on Fox Street, Mo had her community to keep an eye out for her and her younger sister Dottie, for whom Mo is oft made responsible. His leaving Mo alone (and forgetting her once) is horribly problematic in Mo Wren, Lost and Found. He is striving to provide a life where she can have the opportunity to be a little girl, to be carefree. We just have to hope they all survive it. We have to hope that Mo again finds herself capable.
There are all sorts of lost objects and lost people and lost feelings and lost memories to be found. This is an ambitious little novel and there were moments I wondered if there was a little too much. We learn people move on. Change is hard but sometimes necessary and for a number of reasons. Sometimes we need to let things go for the sake of another person, to give someone else an opportunity (Fox Street, Parenting roles). New friends await, and could use the new face. And “Fortune favors the brave,” Mo and Da, the elderly neighbor from Fox Street, remind themselves rather determinedly.
As those people and objects that always held center for Mo Wren shift out from under her, we have Dottie who not only seems to be just fine, she’s thriving. Dottie is growing up to be quite capable and wise herself. But she has Mo. All Mo has to do is keep herself together, and find some new anchors, or perhaps remember some old ones. Maybe her dad will prove to be there for her after all? Maybe she will find a community of people she can depend on, a new extended family on East 213th.
Mo’s friend Mercedes is back, and is as issue-laden and self-absorbed with it as in the past book. Their dynamic is unusual in novels, though not unfamiliar in life; which is nice, even as it is uncomfortable. Besides being the BFF, Mercedes provides another perspective, another facet to this difficulty that is change—again. Pi Baggott reappears and is sweet and Mo is all aflutter. Yet there is an all-too-convenient (though not unrealistic) turn to accompany the other turns that facilitate Mo’s ability to move on. And while it is fantastic that the story doesn’t slough off Fox Street too easily, East 213th has a story and a character to develop as well. Mo and novel must move on. And the pacing in the progression of this move is good. As to how one speaks to the balance, it depends on the Reader. However, I don’t think the young reader will be overwhelmed; the thinking one might. We are meant to be overwhelmed. The tension is in the weight and the compounding of multiple anxieties. And just when we think it could all go right—finally!—no! Oh no!
Does Mo Wren find everything she needs, all she’s lost? Fortune does favor the brave–and bravery is needed. Because, in the end, Change is good. It’s necessary. Everyone benefits from the opportunity it brings in some form or another. Mo Wren, Lost and Found finds its optimism, its hope. Not that it was ever truly lost, as with many things, it just went missing for awhile.
***********************
Mo Wren, Lost and Found was a good sequel. It reflected back upon the first story in small ways, and was consistent with characters and voice, but Springstubb definitely worked to present a story that could be read on its own. The writing is good. As in the first novel, the clever metaphors are inspiring; a smile for the Reader. The characters, whether human, object, place, or lizard, feel original, and the eccentricities are charming. This is good middle-grade fiction. I can see openings for another installment. I liked What Happened on Fox Street a lot, and I enjoyed Mo Wren, Lost and Found, but I am not eager for another. While good, it was exhausting. I hope Springstubb is working on a new project, an other new project.
Mo Wren, Lost in Found should find connection with eldest children, more likely girls, the serious-minded, and those needing to be more serious-minded; for middle-grade, for anyone who has moved or will move or undergo a big change: though the end message is optimistic, Springstubb commiserates, it isn’t nor will it be easy [it’s refreshing that way].
Regardless of having read the final book in Lucky’s Hard Pan trilogy by Susan Patron recently, the series would have still come to mind (but please, for the sake of fairness, do not read these two series close together). Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, Lauren Child’s inimitable Clarice Bean books, Rita Garcia-Williams’ One Crazy Summer, Belle Teal by Ann M. Martin, and How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor come to mind as well. If you enjoyed What Happened on Fox Street and Mo Wren, Lost and Found, keep an eye out for these reads—even if you didn’t, you should anyway.
L @ omphaloskepsis
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/after-fox-street/