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SNAP BY ELLIE ROLLINS,Two girls- one life changing adventure
two girls
one life-changing adventure
When Danya Quixote’s family fortunes take a turn for the worse and her parents decide that they must sell her pet pony Sancho to make ends meet, Danya, well, snaps. She and her free-spirited best friend Pia decide to whisk Sancho away to Florida, where Danya’s estranged grandmother lives. Danya is convinced her grandmother is sitting on a nest egg that could save Sancho, and so the two embark upon an epic trip along the majestic Mississippi River. As Danya and Pia face crocodiles, Louisiana casinos, and a surprising instance of what looks like divine intervention, they learn about the true power of family, discovering that magic exists if you know where to look and that sometimes the real treasure we're seeking is with us all along.
one life-changing adventure
When Danya Quixote’s family fortunes take a turn for the worse and her parents decide that they must sell her pet pony Sancho to make ends meet, Danya, well, snaps. She and her free-spirited best friend Pia decide to whisk Sancho away to Florida, where Danya’s estranged grandmother lives. Danya is convinced her grandmother is sitting on a nest egg that could save Sancho, and so the two embark upon an epic trip along the majestic Mississippi River. As Danya and Pia face crocodiles, Louisiana casinos, and a surprising instance of what looks like divine intervention, they learn about the true power of family, discovering that magic exists if you know where to look and that sometimes the real treasure we're seeking is with us all along.
- GenresMiddle GradeFiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 2013
4 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Ellie Rollins
2 books35 followersEllie Rollins spent her childhood zipping across the Midwest. Since then, she's chased many of her own adventures in places like Seattle, Paris, and New York, and has had success in the form of at least one death-defying cab ride across Italy. She got her BA from the University of Washington in 2008 and now works at a major publishing company in New York City. She loves peanut butter and jelly and has always wanted to learn to walk a tightrope. ZIP is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 11, 2017
This book was Ellie Rollins's previous book-Zip- and more. I loved it and definitely recommend reading Zip before, some things in Snap will make more sense if you do.
November 13, 2017
I struggled to get into it as an adult and there are some continuity errors. I didn't love it like I hoped but over all an adventure story that was light hearted and fun.
April 10, 2018
This book took me a bit to get into but by the middle I was hooked!!
April 12, 2016
I bought this book because it looked like it might be an attempt to introduce my kids’ generation to the stories of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Unfortunately, my daughter started it and quickly relegated it to the rejection pile, where I found it and, needing something to pass the time during a bad season in my life, endured it to the end. This book does not begin well. To be fair, I did enjoy the ending. Getting through some of the parts in the middle, though, was hard.
For starters, a lot of this story seems as though it was written by a pre-teen girl with very little real experience in the subjects she is writing about. The pony, for one, sounds more like something from a girl’s fantasy than any pony I’ve ever interacted with. After a few chapters, however, I realized that this is most likely because the original story was written by the author when she was a child. I’ve read enough of the classic children’s literature to recognize a book written in an earlier era. This book really does seem to be written about a childhood that would have happened about twenty years ago.
The world in which Danya and Pia play out their adventure is one where children are given walkie-talkies instead of cell phones, where pay phones are easily found and cost only a quarter to make a long distance call, and where Japanese teenagers imitate American fads (breakdancing) from the 1980s instead of create the fads that modern American children now follow (otaku, anybody?). In fact, my own deductive skills point to this book being written in the early 1990s, after the Japanese Elvis craze of the late ‘80s but before parents were giving their children pagers and cell phones to take to school. Very little of the plot had to do with modern things—amber alerts and internet blogs, for example—and several aspects of the plot dealt with antiquated ways of doing things that must have been kept over from the original story. Following a page from a road atlas? Really?
Several of the chapters had obviously seen some serious revisions, some to the point that it felt like whole paragraphs of important information were missing. Key plot points seemed to be alluded to like they had been discussed previously, but when I would go back and try to find where I missed them, I didn’t. Also, the way the author describes distances traveled and especially the very abrupt transitions between downtown city and rural countryside further convinces me of the author’s original age and lack of experience when this story was first written. Some of the characters the girls meet seem to have deeper storylines that don't get completely explored. And don’t get me started on boat anatomy.
The last two chapters seem to flow very well together, and my analysis leads me to suspect that the Grandmother Angie storyline was added by the adult Ellie Rollins when she decided to take an old story from her childhood and revive it for publication. The end result, though, was sometimes really confusing and quite often too unrealistic for me to enjoy. I did like the message at the end, but I don’t think I could read it out loud at the library without getting a lot of hands raised by children asking for some of the 1990s references explained.
Sorry, Ellie. Just being honest.
For starters, a lot of this story seems as though it was written by a pre-teen girl with very little real experience in the subjects she is writing about. The pony, for one, sounds more like something from a girl’s fantasy than any pony I’ve ever interacted with. After a few chapters, however, I realized that this is most likely because the original story was written by the author when she was a child. I’ve read enough of the classic children’s literature to recognize a book written in an earlier era. This book really does seem to be written about a childhood that would have happened about twenty years ago.
The world in which Danya and Pia play out their adventure is one where children are given walkie-talkies instead of cell phones, where pay phones are easily found and cost only a quarter to make a long distance call, and where Japanese teenagers imitate American fads (breakdancing) from the 1980s instead of create the fads that modern American children now follow (otaku, anybody?). In fact, my own deductive skills point to this book being written in the early 1990s, after the Japanese Elvis craze of the late ‘80s but before parents were giving their children pagers and cell phones to take to school. Very little of the plot had to do with modern things—amber alerts and internet blogs, for example—and several aspects of the plot dealt with antiquated ways of doing things that must have been kept over from the original story. Following a page from a road atlas? Really?
Several of the chapters had obviously seen some serious revisions, some to the point that it felt like whole paragraphs of important information were missing. Key plot points seemed to be alluded to like they had been discussed previously, but when I would go back and try to find where I missed them, I didn’t. Also, the way the author describes distances traveled and especially the very abrupt transitions between downtown city and rural countryside further convinces me of the author’s original age and lack of experience when this story was first written. Some of the characters the girls meet seem to have deeper storylines that don't get completely explored. And don’t get me started on boat anatomy.
The last two chapters seem to flow very well together, and my analysis leads me to suspect that the Grandmother Angie storyline was added by the adult Ellie Rollins when she decided to take an old story from her childhood and revive it for publication. The end result, though, was sometimes really confusing and quite often too unrealistic for me to enjoy. I did like the message at the end, but I don’t think I could read it out loud at the library without getting a lot of hands raised by children asking for some of the 1990s references explained.
Sorry, Ellie. Just being honest.
February 10, 2017
The plot was literally identical to Zip, but with a few Spanish words thrown in. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, because Zip is just one of those books I don't mind doing again, especially with a Mexican twist.
Snap is an adorable book of pure spontaneity. While incredibly convenient (incredibly), it's impossible to predict where the clever and fun-filled plot will go. The ending was adorable. There were two quotation mark typos though lol (pages 118, 234).
One thing that deeply bothered me though is that Danya is allowed to just take her horse inside nice buildings and on boats and on buses all the time, and not only that, but she somehow achieves this without leaving a big pile of dung behind her at every place she visits...
Snap is an adorable book of pure spontaneity. While incredibly convenient (incredibly), it's impossible to predict where the clever and fun-filled plot will go. The ending was adorable. There were two quotation mark typos though lol (pages 118, 234).
One thing that deeply bothered me though is that Danya is allowed to just take her horse inside nice buildings and on boats and on buses all the time, and not only that, but she somehow achieves this without leaving a big pile of dung behind her at every place she visits...
April 9, 2014
Danya loves her pony Sancho. She takes him with her everywhere and he is her best friend. When she finds out her parents have sold Sancho she is determined to save him. Danya and her cousin Pia run away with Sancho to Florida. They are determined to find Danya's grandmother Angie, Danya's favorite author and who she has never met. They are on a hero's quest like in Angie's books. There are certain tasks they must complete in order to complete the quest. The three of them travel from Kentucky to Florida with the help of those they meet along the way. They wrestle alligators, join the circus, stow away on a cruise ship and spend the night in Graceland.
I thought this was a fun book, completely unbelievable, but fun. Somehow the girls get a pony to hide in a truck, ride in a motorcycle sidecar and stay in a cruise ship cabin. There is never any mention of the horse doing his business (which I am sure would be terribly messy wherever they were). There are times the group is recognized and chased by police or concerned citizens, but they always manage to outwit them and make their escape. I liked Danya and Pia and Sancho, but I couldn't quite buy their story or stop questioning how they were able to do what they were doing.
I thought this was a fun book, completely unbelievable, but fun. Somehow the girls get a pony to hide in a truck, ride in a motorcycle sidecar and stay in a cruise ship cabin. There is never any mention of the horse doing his business (which I am sure would be terribly messy wherever they were). There are times the group is recognized and chased by police or concerned citizens, but they always manage to outwit them and make their escape. I liked Danya and Pia and Sancho, but I couldn't quite buy their story or stop questioning how they were able to do what they were doing.
March 2, 2016
Name: Sami B.
Class: 7 Red
Pages: 320
Review: Extra
Snap by Ellie Rollins brings love, adventure, and inspiration together in a detailed tale of two girls who run away from home to save a beloved pet pony and a fracturing family relationship. On their journey, the girls begin to discover the importance of family above all else. I recommend this book to readers from 8 to 12, or anyone else who is intrigued by this story.
Class: 7 Red
Pages: 320
Review: Extra
Snap by Ellie Rollins brings love, adventure, and inspiration together in a detailed tale of two girls who run away from home to save a beloved pet pony and a fracturing family relationship. On their journey, the girls begin to discover the importance of family above all else. I recommend this book to readers from 8 to 12, or anyone else who is intrigued by this story.
July 8, 2016
Danya will do anything to keep her pony Sancho! Danya and her friend Pia set off on a journey to save Sancho from an evil and cruel man. Her only hope is a grandmother she doesn't even know! A whirlwind adventure! A very fun book!
April 11, 2014
This book was great. I LOVED it
May 18, 2015
LOVED IT, AS I LOVED ZIP!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews