3 out of 4 stars
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The Adventures of Lola by Jade Harley is a magical children’s chapter book about a thirteen-year-old girl and her mission to save her community. Lola thinks that her life is pretty boring. She knows there must be something more out there. When Lola overhears the new teacher at her school talking about something bad that might happen, she knows it must be her mission to find out what’s going on. She doesn’t hear exactly what this suspected event is, but she knows she must do something. She recruits her two best friends to help her do some detective work and find out just what it is that’s going to happen. Will they be able to discover what this event is in time to stop it?
The story is told in the first-person perspective through Lola’s point of view. This perspective gives a great insight into Lola’s thoughts and emotions. As a result, the reader really gets to know Lola and her personality as the story is told. She is a very relatable character for kids her age, and this extra insight will really help readers connect with her. The other characters were also developed well, and the reader really gets to see them the way Lola does. She spends quite a bit of time describing her friends and family, so the reader gets to know them along the way.
Not only were the descriptions of the characters great, but the descriptions of the scenery and action scenes were also excellent. It was easy to visualize everything the author wrote about. She did a great job painting a vivid picture of what was happening. There were also a few illustrations within the book that added to the story and helped with the visualization of certain scenes. I really enjoyed these pictures and would have even liked to see more throughout the book.
I also enjoyed the difficulty level of this book. I thought it had enough advanced vocabulary to challenge kids without being so hard that they want to stop reading it. I would definitely recommend the book for kids between the ages of 10 and 13. Because the character is thirteen, this age group would relate to her well. I also think it could be a great challenging book for younger children who have a higher reading level. The concept isn’t overly mature like some books of this reading level, but the book would still help them learn new words.
Unfortunately, there were some errors in the book. They were fairly minor, but it was still enough to notice. Because it is a children’s book, I feel that extra attention should be paid to the errors. When reading, children should see proper grammar that matches what they are learning in school. The only other critique I have about the book is that the dialogue was often unbelievable. I understand that this is a make-believe story, but I feel that children will connect more if the dialogue is closer to what they hear in real life.
Keeping all of that in mind, I give this book 3 out of 4 stars. I thought that it had a great plot and characters and is perfect for children who are on the brink of their teenage years. If the errors were fixed and the dialogue were tweaked, I would definitely consider giving this book a perfect score.
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The Adventures of Lola
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