"Emmy Addison was an ordinary girl---almost."

For about the past week, I was feeling stuck in two obligation books--one fiction, one non-fiction--that are review and challenge reads.  I just couldn't get anywhere in them even though they're enjoyable enough.  So I finally decided to just set them both down for a few days and get my reading groove back elsewhere.  Thanks to Lynne Jonell and Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls, I'm feeling much better about reading now!  Three hours with this fun book was the perfect prescription.

This upper elementary level book picks up about four weeks after Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat which I read last year.  Emmy has freed herself from the evil nanny clutches of Miss Barmy and has supposedly incapacitated her.  But she is still uneasy and she also wonders about the fates of the girls that Barmy tended before.  They were supposedly sent away to a "home" but none have ever been seen again.  With the help of her new friend Joe, his six year old brother Thomas and Raston the rat, Emmy works to find out what Miss Barmy did with the other young girls and what evil scheme she is working on now.  The only thing in her way is her own wish to be a more normal little girl -- one who doesn't have rodents for friends.

I powered through this book pretty quickly.  The plot pulls you right in and Emmy's troubles with trying to fit in are believable and touching.  The only thing that slowed me down in this book was the flip-book drawing in each side margin -- Z kept stealing the book from me while I was trying to read!  He loved the flip-book in the first one and is even better at flipping it this year.  Reading this book reminded me that there is nothing wrong with picking a simple book just for enjoyment.  Thank you, Emmy!

Pretending not to understand the cats,
K


Support our site and buy Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed our copy from the library.