Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe
By Jo Watson Hackl
Hi! Have you ever visited your aunt and uncle? Well, imagine living with your aunt. Cricket’s mom disappeared and her dad died, so she was sent to live with her Aunt Belinda. Her cousins teased her a lot because of her name.
One day, Cricket was in a grocery store “helping” her aunt find groceries when she found a cricket stuck in a spider web. She felt sad for the cricket and so she helped it escape. Then, because her cousins were teasing her, she took the cricket and went to the bathroom, trying to find an open door for the cricket to escape through. Suddenly, the cricket jumped out of her hand. She spent a while trying to chase the cricket through all of the stalls. By the time she finally caught it, the grocery store was dark. There was no one there! (Duh, duh, duh!!!)
So, she took some things from the grocery store and wrote a note of how much she owed the grocery store and she went off to live on her own to try to find her mom. Her mom had promised that she would be back at a certain place at a certain time. Her mom had really wanted to find a place called “The Bird Room.” She had said that everything was alive in that room. And when Cricket’s mom went to the Bird Room, a man that worked there told her that she could only find it once, but he would set up certain clues that would lead her to a treasure if she followed them. Then, he gave her the first clue. It was a mini bird. Cricket’s mom soon passed it onto Cricket and she was determined to find all of the clues so she could bring her mom back.
Will Cricket find the bird room and find her mom? Or does the Bird Room not even exist and it’s just a story that her mom made up? Will her mom show up for Cricket or not? As I always say, read the book to find out!
I recommend this book to readers who like mystery and excitement, to readers who like figuring out the clues.
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor):
Zero. None. Nada.
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor):
Just a little bit of sadness, but that doesn’t count.
I give this book 5 wands.
I absolutely loved this book! It was amazing how the author was able to put so much detail into it. I actually feel like I’m the character of Cricket in this story. I hope you will feel that way, too!
