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...

Welcome To Junior High (Girl Talk, #1) by L.E. Blair is the first book in the Girl Talk book series taking place in Acorn Falls, Minnesota and featuring the unlikely friendship between four American girls by the names of Sabrina "Sab" Wells, Allison Cloud, Katherine "Katie" Campbell , and Rowena "Randy" Zak. The first edition in this series is told from the point of view of Sabrina Wells, who is excited for the first day of junior high and seventh grade. Everything that can go wrong on the first day of school does . . . along with making an enemy the principal's daughter, Stacy the Great. The Girl Talk book series was one of my favorite book series when I was in middle school, and I was absolutely in love with the board game of the same name. I never put together that they had anything to do with one another until a few years ago. Additionally, I literally just learned was L.E. Blair is a pseudonym used by author Katherine Applegate, who I absolutel...