Tumble & Blue
By Cassie Beasley
Hi! Have you ever lost a game? Well, Blue has a bunch of times. That’s because half of Blue’s family, the Montgomerys, are cursed. The other half are gifted. Blue is cursed to always lose. And this is how his story goes…
One day, a young man named Alan (Blue’s father), dropped Blue off (or should we say “dumped”?) at Blue’s grandmother’s house. It wasn’t just a coincidence that he had dropped Blue off on the week of the red moon. The red moon only happened once every hundred years. That night is a very special night for the Montgomerys because that is a night that they could change their fate.
As soon as Blue walked in the house, he met three of his cousins: Ida, whose curse was that animals hated her; Jenna, whose gift was that all animals loved her; and Howard, who had the talent of eating. When Blue met them, he loved them with all his heart. And then there was his great-grandma Myrtle, but everyone called her “Ma Myrtle.” She was able to predict futures. And she was the one who was going to pick who was going to get their fate changed under the light of the red moon.
Ma Myrtle invited all the Montgomerys over to the house to prove which one of them was going to get to go and change their fate on the night of the red moon. But only the cursed Montgomerys went because all of the gifted ones didn’t need to change their fate. That night, as Blue was running to a sign post that welcomed them to Murky Branch (where his grandmother and Ma Myrtle lived), he felt so bad because so much was at stake. That’s when he met Tumble.
Tumble heard him screaming and went out to see what the problem was. When she saw him, she met him and made a new friend. Blue told Tumble all about his curse, but he hadn’t yet realized that she wasn’t a Montgomery. When he finally realized it, he felt really bad because he just knew she wouldn’t believe him, which she didn’t. The next day, she went over to Blue’s house to show him that he could win at least once. They played scrabble once, and Blue lost. When they played Tiddlywinks, he was almost blinded because sometimes he had to get hurt to lose.
The next day, Tumble and Blue raced. Tumble was wearing this really ruffley dress and Ida’s snake boots because she wanted to make it easier on Blue. Blue was in the lead, he was almost there, when all of a sudden, some deer trampled him. Blood started running out of his leg. He needed stitches, and fast! But Blue decided he would try to make it to the finish line. Just because he was injured didn’t mean that he had lost yet. Then, all of a sudden, this dog started chasing after Tumble. Even though Tumble was in this really frilly dress, she ran as fast as she could to get away from the dog and won the race.
Then, Blue figured out that Tumble was cursed, too. She was always the one who needed to be saved when she was trying to save someone else. So he figured out that her curse was that she always needed saving.
Will Tumble and Blue get picked to go and find the red moon or will they all be cursed to live like this forever? As I always say, read the book to find out!
I recommend this book to readers who love exciting, thrilling stories and stories that you just never want to put down. I would not recommend this book to readers who like to put the book down, because it is a book that you will not want to put down!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor): There were a few scary parts in this story, but I didn’t have to get my mom on any of them.
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor): Zero. None. Nada. Aucun (that’s French for “none”).
I give this book 5 wands.
It was awesome! My favorite part was, well I can’t really tell you. You’re just going to have to read the book to find out. The scary parts in the book were a thrill. Exciting, adventurous, ... the book just wouldn’t be the book without these scary parts.
