The Running Bibliophile

Surprise, Surprise! (Horse Crazy, #4) by Virginia Vail opens with Emily Jordan being excited that her parents and brother are coming to visit her at Webster's Country Horse Camp. Much to Emily's surprise, they brought her best friend Judy with them. The fourth book in the Horse Crazy book series was written extremely well for the target audience. I remembered loving this series as a child and had to reread it as an adult. It brought back all the feels, and it made me wish I had attended an overnight horse camp when I was a kid. And, I didn't remember anything about this book, so it was like reading it for the first time. Major themes of the book included jealousy and feeling left out. The way that Virginia Vail dealt with these topics was done perfectly because who hasn't felt like Emily at some point in their life? I loved the fact that the author had Emily and Judy discuss how they were feeling because it teaches kids that communication is key and not to assume thin...

Karen's Witch (Baby-Sitters Little Sister, #1) by Ann M. Martin is the first book in Baby-Sitters Little Sister , which is a spinoff of The Baby-Sitters Club . Karen Brewer only gets to spend every other weekend with her father and his new family. The biggest rule at her father's house is that she's not allowed to spy on the neighbors, which Karen ignores so she can spy on Mrs. Porter, aka Morbidda Destiny, who is a witch. As a tween, I read a few of the books in the Baby-Sitters Little Sister book series, but because the series was a bit young for me so I didn't read very many of the books in this series. I decided to give the first book a read as an adult since I didn't really remember anything about it. I was pleasantly surprised by the storyline of Karen's Witch . It was an engaging read with quite a bit of realism to it. Kids have such an active imagination and sometimes disregard parent's rules, so I loved that Ann M. Martin wrote a book about these ...