Excited to find a new children's book, imagine my disappointment when I found it a great chore to finish it. In fact, I skipped a great deal of the last several chapters.
A girl (Jane) with many brothers is befriended by a little girl (Staffa) who is basically Wednesday Adams. Staffa's mother is a torrentially overdone villain, as though someone were trying way to hard to make another Nanny McPhee or other odd character, only evil.
I love surprises and fantasy. Characters riding a bumble bee? No problem. Characters who are really elf-mice in disguise? Love it! However... I cannot tolerate unbelievable actions. For example, would you, as a mother of a 12 year old girl, allow her to leave the country for several weeks with a girl she has only known for a few months? I think not. Furthermore, would you, as a mother, allow said 12 year old girl to go to such a place where cellphones are not allowed and she can only converse with you via post cards? I think not again!
This book was full of ridiculous actions such as these. I give you another example. Character A tells character B where character C is. Character B comments, therefore making the reader realize that she knows exactly what's going on and where he is. Two pages later, "Where's character C?" Uh ... he would be where you were told he was 5 seconds ago. And then she acts all surprised with his predicament, an emotional reaction she did not have in that prior 5 second window. The plot was beyond obvious to any leveled reader, yet the characters seemed completely baffled by results of theirs and others actions. (That, and by the end of the book, I was literally gagging with the constant mention of sweets. Whole cakes for every meal? Gag!)
Another major flaw was the writing, or lack of variant writing. One example that I pointed out to my husband was three sentences in a row, all starting with "She looked". These were not written in such as fashion as to make a statement or be funny. Even my husband noticed, and that's not his forte. Repetition was rampant in this book. Pronoun-verb-object, pronoun-verb-object. There were no varying structures or even vocabulary.
Now, one could surmise that this was because it was written for children. Any human being, whether children or adult, could not possibly enjoy this fashion unless they were still on the Dick and Jane series. This book was far thicker than its apparent intended audience. When I pick up a children's book that is written for a younger audience than I prefer, I place it down and do not review it. But this book was presented in an older format, as though for an older audience. It drove me crazy.