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Star Friends #12
Power Gem
In the 12th installment of the Star Friends series, Mia, Lexi, Sita, and Violet suspect dark magic when everyone becomes irritable, quick to blame others, and unable to work together. Can the girls figure out what's going on?
The town of Westport is planning to destroy a nearby forested area to make way for a housing development. But that forest is exactly where Mia, Lexi, Sita, and Violet gather in secret to practice magic with their Star Animals! After attending a music festival, they discover that everyone in town is irritable, quick to blame others, and unable to work together. Is there dark magic at work? And if so, who is behind it--and why? With black-and-white illustrations throughout.
In the Star Friends chapter book series, Mia and her friends Lexi, Sita, and Violet all discover that they are Star Friends -- they can communicate with the animals that have traveled from the Star World. The animals show the girls how to use their unique magic abilities to do good. A whole world of magical adventures awaits!
The town of Westport is planning to destroy a nearby forested area to make way for a housing development. But that forest is exactly where Mia, Lexi, Sita, and Violet gather in secret to practice magic with their Star Animals! After attending a music festival, they discover that everyone in town is irritable, quick to blame others, and unable to work together. Is there dark magic at work? And if so, who is behind it--and why? With black-and-white illustrations throughout.
In the Star Friends chapter book series, Mia and her friends Lexi, Sita, and Violet all discover that they are Star Friends -- they can communicate with the animals that have traveled from the Star World. The animals show the girls how to use their unique magic abilities to do good. A whole world of magical adventures awaits!
160 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2024
3 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Linda Chapman
737 books201 followersLinda Chapman was born in Liverpool in 1969. She had many different jobs before becoming a full-time writer in 1999 including working as a theatre stage manager, a dog trainer, a bookseller, a nanny, a teacher and a research assistant. She has written over 300 books for children, some under her own name, others under different names and she often collaborates with other authors. She is currently writing books with Julie Sykes and they are co-authors on the NYT bestselling Unicorn Academy series as well as Mermaid Academy, Forever Homes and Pocket Unicorns. Linda lives in Leicestershire with her husband, three children, two horses and three dogs. She has written many different series including: My Secret Unicorn, Star Friends, Best Friends Bakery, Stardust, Skating School and, most recently, Magic Keepers and Moonlight Riders.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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January 18, 2025See my full review here: https://www.yabookscentral.com/power-...
POWER GEM is a delightful new installment in the STAR FRIENDS series. Continuing the story from the last book, the girls had stopped the sloth shades - but they do not yet know who was behind it and using dark magic. In this book, they are determined to solve the mystery, and they assume whoever was using the dark magic was using it to prevent people from protesting the luxury houses planned to be built on the hill, which would also wreck their clearing where they practice magic.
The girls decide to do some detective work, as whoever is using dark magic is using powerful blocking spells to prevent them from discovering their identity. In her search, Mia also learns that some of her friends are keeping secrets. As they solve the case, Mia also seeks to understand the secrets her friends are hiding.
What I loved: This was a very fun mystery with some high stakes, as the person using black magic is at it again! The red herrings along the way were very well done with the girls and reader questioning whodunnit. While there were some misleading assumptions, the book also provides some good clues for the reader to figure it out before the girls definitively find out, which is great for readers who like to have smart guesses. The mystery is resolved in this story, giving readers some closure.
Themes around friendship, environmentalism, secrets, and family are strong in this story, and these will speak well to the intended audience. With illustrations throughout, this works well for advancing independent readers who are moving away from the easier chapter books. Illustrations do not appear on every page, but they are really detailed and well done throughout. The length and plot are also great for this age, and I'd recommend for middle elementary school aged readers.
Strong and compelling characters in the core girls and their animals make this a great series to follow. While the book includes a recap at the beginning of the story, I would recommend reading the book just before this one to understand this story and the mystery better (with a note that it is a little scary!). Otherwise, the books in the series can be enjoying without the usual sequence due to great recaps of key information and mostly self-contained mysteries/problems to solve.
Final verdict: POWER GEM is a fantastic new story with strong themes of friendship and secrets as well as an engaging mystery to solve! Highly recommend for middle elementary school readers.
Please note that I received an ARC. All opinions are my own.
POWER GEM is a delightful new installment in the STAR FRIENDS series. Continuing the story from the last book, the girls had stopped the sloth shades - but they do not yet know who was behind it and using dark magic. In this book, they are determined to solve the mystery, and they assume whoever was using the dark magic was using it to prevent people from protesting the luxury houses planned to be built on the hill, which would also wreck their clearing where they practice magic.
The girls decide to do some detective work, as whoever is using dark magic is using powerful blocking spells to prevent them from discovering their identity. In her search, Mia also learns that some of her friends are keeping secrets. As they solve the case, Mia also seeks to understand the secrets her friends are hiding.
What I loved: This was a very fun mystery with some high stakes, as the person using black magic is at it again! The red herrings along the way were very well done with the girls and reader questioning whodunnit. While there were some misleading assumptions, the book also provides some good clues for the reader to figure it out before the girls definitively find out, which is great for readers who like to have smart guesses. The mystery is resolved in this story, giving readers some closure.
Themes around friendship, environmentalism, secrets, and family are strong in this story, and these will speak well to the intended audience. With illustrations throughout, this works well for advancing independent readers who are moving away from the easier chapter books. Illustrations do not appear on every page, but they are really detailed and well done throughout. The length and plot are also great for this age, and I'd recommend for middle elementary school aged readers.
Strong and compelling characters in the core girls and their animals make this a great series to follow. While the book includes a recap at the beginning of the story, I would recommend reading the book just before this one to understand this story and the mystery better (with a note that it is a little scary!). Otherwise, the books in the series can be enjoying without the usual sequence due to great recaps of key information and mostly self-contained mysteries/problems to solve.
Final verdict: POWER GEM is a fantastic new story with strong themes of friendship and secrets as well as an engaging mystery to solve! Highly recommend for middle elementary school readers.
Please note that I received an ARC. All opinions are my own.
August 3, 2025
Picking up immediately where the last book left off, the friends are trying to discover who was putting Shades all over the town. Their investigative skills are still bad enough that we can fill up a good eleven chapters before we settle on the actual person doing the actual dark magic, and when the girls didn't trust their instincts the kids were both like "come on! Don't do that!" which turned out to be the right move and I love that they are catching on, even if the star friends are not.
We all enjoyed this one and the thing that was such a let down about book 10 finally happened in this book so that made it better. I'm sure that there will be more Star Friends books and I'm sure that we will be reading them.
We all enjoyed this one and the thing that was such a let down about book 10 finally happened in this book so that made it better. I'm sure that there will be more Star Friends books and I'm sure that we will be reading them.
September 12, 2024
Much of the same as in the other books
September 24, 2025
can't believe I've finished this series if I could give 10 stars to each book I definitely would have I love this book series thank you 😊
October 11, 2025
The latest book of the series star friends begins with the friends having a sleepover together.They talk about the other adventure from dream shield and Ionie casts a glamour on herself to scare her friends,the girls hang out with maddie the new girl but she doesn’t really pay attention like she has something on her mind.Maia has another magic dream with the person that is doing dark magic.Maddie asks to leave the sleepover early as she has left something at her aunts house.The friends talk about hanningan who wants to destroy the clearing so that her can construct some buildings.Sita gets an idea.But she doesn’t tell the others.The friends go to the clearing and they practise their magic.They go to the Arina to watch mr hanningan as they thing he is the one doing dark magic,they see Maia sister and nearly get caught out from being by themselves.They go to the music concert that is being held the next day,and have quite a bit of fun.Maia thinks the person doing dark magic is Ariana and Sam but they realise after that it isn’t them.Everyone starts to get suspicious of each other,the friends discover a cracked boulder in the clearing and clear it away.Sita hurries away after getting an important call.Maia realises what caused the suspicion with everyone.(it’s the nails they got done at the concert.)The friends hurry to hanningan house where they get caught by mr hanningan wife!(she is the one doing dark magic)suddenly a mouse jumps on her when she is just about to erase Maia and her friends memories .(It’s maddie and she is now a star friend!She is the one that cracked the boulder in the clearing as she has the power to explode things.They manage to stop the person doing dark magic and save the clearing with maddie star friend daisy who is an endangered animal!🦔
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews