Bestselling author Lisa Greenwald's charming middle grade novel with summertime fun, crushes, and babysitting—and a dash of magic—is a sequel perfect for fans of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and That's So Raven.
Is the magic really back?
When Mille, Nora, and Bea found fortune tellers popping up in unexpected places—with eerily accurate fortunes—they reunited as best friends. Now that they're back to being besties, they're excited to spend the summer together outside the city. Recruited into babysitting eight-year-old triplets and staying with Millie's family, the girls are hoping this will be their own private summer camp, one where they're in charge, away from annoying siblings and toxic frenemies.
But nothing perfect can last. When everything from homesickness and boy craziness to real estate developers threaten their summer, Millie, Nora, and Bea start stumbling upon fortune tellers in the strangest places. And once again it feels like these fortune tellers are speaking to Sometimes in life you just have to jump in. Speak your mind and stand up for what you believe in! You are here for a reason. If they speak up, can Millie, Nora, and Bea really save the summer—and the community—before it's too late?
A long bio can be kind of boring, so instead I'm going to pretend that a famous journalist (maybe Barbara Walters) is interviewing me. The only thing is, I'm making up the questions. If you think of any other questions you'd like me to answer, send me an email and ask away!
Q. Where did you grow up? A. I lived in Fairfield, Connecticut until the end of fifth grade and then I moved to Roslyn Heights, New York. That's on Long Island. But I don't have a bad Lawn Guyland accent, I promise.
Q. Do you have any siblings? A. Yes, I have two younger brothers. I always wanted a sister, but it's kind of nice being the only daughter in the family, and my brothers and I are really close.
Q. What about the rest of your family? Are you close with them too? A. Yes, family is really important to me. I talk to my parents and grandparents every day.
Q. Are you married? A. Yes, to a fabulous guy named Dave. We met at sleep away camp when I was sixteen.
Q. Do you have any kids? A. Yes, my daughter Aleah Violet Rosenberg was born on May 28th, 2010 and I personally think she's the cutest baby in the world, but of course I am biased.
Q. Do you have any pets? A. I had a miniature toy poodle named Yoffi, but he died in 2007. I miss him so much.
Q. That's sad. Do you think you will get another dog? A. I would love to adopt one very soon!
Q. What is your favorite book? A. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is my favorite book in the whole entire world. I read it in sixth grade in Ms. Mayer's class. I have read many books since then, but Tuck Everlasting is still my absolute favorite.
Q. What is your favorite movie? A. I have two. Clueless and Avalon.
Q. What's one of the craziest things that's ever happened to you? A. I won a radio contest at the end of eighth grade! Someone from Z100 called me up and asked me to say the "phrase that pays" and I answered correctly. I won a thousand dollars.
Q. Did you always want to be a writer? A. No, not always. I wanted to be a hair stylist, then a concert pianist, then a rabbi. But I always loved making up stories, so I think writing is the perfect job for me.
Q. Where did you go to college? A. I went to Binghamton University in upstate New York. I was an English major with a concentration in creative writing. It's reallllllllly cold in Binghamton. Then two years after I graduated college, I went to The New School to get my MFA in writing for children.
Q. You mentioned that you met Dave at sleep away camp. Did you really like sleep away camp? A. YES! I loved it. I went to Eisner Camp in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I would go back to camp forever if only I could. Sleep away camp is the best place in the world.
Q. Tell me some other things you really like. A. Okay. Here's a short list: sleeping late, fancy hotels, reading and writing (duh!,) peanut m&ms, flip flops, sweatpants, people watching, New York City, cheese omelets, weddings, pedicures, looking at old pictures and re-reading old cards and letters.
Q. Tell me some things you really dislike. A. Peas, mean people, rats and mice, sweating, pants and skirts with a side zipper, spicy food, uncomfortable shoes, people clipping their nails on the subway, feeling lonely or thinking about other people who might feel lonely.
Q. MY LIFE IN PINK & GREEN is about a pharmacy. Do you really like pharmacies? A. Yes, I love them! I love the way they smell and the way the aisles are arranged. I love when the pharmacists know the customers and I love looking at all the beauty products.
Q. Do you write every day? A. I try to, but in addition to writing I also work in the library at The Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan. I love being around kids and books and talking to kids about books!
Q. I don't have any more questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add? A. Just that I hope readers like my book, and I'd love to hear from all of them if they want to talk to me!
Unfortunately this feels very outdated in terms of what we expect and want from kids books, particularly those geared toward girls.
It’s a shame because the premise for this sounded cute and apropos for a fun summer read. But this is centered on a couple of very shopworn plot lines, and there’s nothing about the way they’re used here that is either unique or especially well-rendered.
The girls in this seem very young for their age in terms of how they speak and think (maybe 6th grade at best, not 8th), and they also make some observations that would never come from a kid at all because they’re too adult, making it a problem on both ends of the spectrum.
The book also has no real sense of place and perhaps most importantly, no atmospheric sense of summer nostalgia, which is sort of what the book seems to be trying to sell itself on based on the cover and summary.
There are many great young reader books out there that focus on summer vacation and coming of age. You (and your kids) can skip this one.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE SUMMER OF FORTUNE TELLERS by Lisa Greenwald in exchange for my honest review***
3.5 STARS
Three best friends spend the summer before eighth grade at a lake house as mother’s helpers for eight-year-old triplets. The girls tackle anxieties, their first boyfriend, changes in their families and other growing pains.
I loved the girls’ interactions with the triplets.
Lisa Greenwald tells THE SUMMER OF FORTUNE TELLERS from the points of view of friends Nora, Bea and Millie. Because all three voices were nearly identical, I often forgot whose third person POV I was reading and which girl was with which boy, though the boys had more distinct personalities than the girls.
Middle grade girls will love THE SUMMER OF FORTUNE TELLERS, though the lack of diversity in the book may turn away some potential readers.
It's definitely an amazing book for a 12-13 year old (the new teenagers). I'm not around that age group so this book felt like too kidish to me and I felt like dragging myself into completing this rather than enjoying it. It's like upcoming of teenager, new feeling of everything, wanting to experience love, romance, relationship, friendship, etc.
If you're a person who is in the age group 11-13, then this is definitely written for you.
Recently reunited besties Millie, Nora and Bea are back together for the summer at Millie’s house. They are babysitting triplets and hanging out with cute boys.
I thought that the girls inner monologues were well done and you got a feel for what they were thinking. They were also realistically boy crazy. The book was lighthearted but also touched on some heavier things.
After their COVID adventures in dealing with the lockdown and trouble with their private school, Bea, Nora, and Millie have made amends, and have frequent sleepovers. For the summer, Millie's mom has arranged for the three girls to babysit the triplets of a neighbor, Roberta, a single mom by choice who works as a nurse. They will be staying at the Sheffield Shores cottages that the family now runs. This means a month long sleepover! Millie is still happily dating Rodge, whose father has gotten work locally as a chef, and has to spend studying for her bat mitzvah, but is excited to have her friends visit. Bea is a little worried about leaving her twin, Danny, and her Aunt Claire, who is still suffering from seizures. Nora's friends are obsessed with boys, and she herself is interested in Jeremy back home, but open to a summer fling as well. She's a little worried about her mother, who will be alone while her sister Penelope is with their dad. The three make summer goals (having a first kiss, eating french fries), and jump right into their summer, meeting Rodge and two of his friends at the beach. Of course, Bea is drawn to the quiet Connor, whose father runs a local hardware store. Nora is smitten with Greg, and is sure that she is in love with him. The triplets, Audrey, Pearl, and Helen, are in third grade, which is how old Millie and her friends were when they discovered fortune tellers, so in addition to going to the lake, making a group cheer, and doing other "camp" activities, the girls introduce their charges to the joy of making fortune tellers. These also magically appear at opportune moments, with messages like "Be here now". Millie is sometimes overwhelmed by being around people all the time, and Nora and Bea sometimes struggle with homesickness or concerns about school or friends, but they all get along fairly well, and do a good job babysitting. There's also a LOT of time spent hanging out with the boys, eating burgers, and sometimes kissing. When a developer threatens to bring luxury homes to the area, which might cause the Sheffield Shores area to change dramatically. The girls decide that saving the community is the goal that the fortune tellers have been compelling them toward, and with the boys' help, they organize speeches, petition signing, and other members to try to that's the developers. Summer doesn't last forever, and soon it is time to return to "real life". Since the girls' destiny is to improve any situation they are in, will we see mover of this positive impact in another book? Strengths: If authors really thought back to their own middle school experiences and calculated how much of their thoughts revolved around romance, I think we would see a LOT more of it in books! Are the girls "boy crazy", or are they just at a developmental stage where they are thinking a lot about kissing, and even about marrying when they are older? This strikes me as absolutely realistic. As someone who spent a lot of time babysitting at this age, the inclusion of a summer job watching triplets also makes perfect sense. Add a bit of social activism, and set all of this against a background of a summer lake community where there are plenty of hamburgers and ice cream, and this is a perfect book for readers who want to vicariously have the best summer ever. There are still real life concerns like family and friends, and some anxiety over being away from home, but that, too, is to be expected. I usually don't find sequels to be as engaging as first books in a series, but I might have enjoyed this even more than Fortune Tellers. Will the next book in the series have a pink or a pale blue cover? Weaknesses: We don't find out what happens with the development! There are enough signatures on the petitions, but we have to wait for a vote. If development in the Berkshires is anything like it is here in Ohio, I don't have a good feeling about what will happen at Sheffield Shores. What I really think: This is a great series for readers who love Greenwald's writing (Her TMI series has been flying off the shelves this year!) or books like Nelson's WISH titles or Shroeder's Lucky Charm Books.
This book feels like the perfect summer day! Three besties Mille, Nora, and Bea, who came back from the worst friendship breakup in Book 1, are together again, this time working as babysitters in a lake community. Full of friendship, so many firsts--boyfriends, kisses, jobs, time away from home--and the quest to save the area for everyone who lives there from a fancy developer, this story is once again sprinkled with the magic of the fortune tellers the girls used to make in elementary school that help them navigate their complicated feelings and relationships. That is what I love so much about Lisa Greenwald’s writing—she is right there with these girls in their emotions and there are a lot of them. The struggle to be honest with themselves, with each other, and to live in the now while wanting to keep all of these firsts in their hearts forever. So good! Anxiety about things big and small, being homesick and thrilled to be away from home all at once, wondering if you’re boy crazy or truly in love when maybe it is both!! And the middle grade voice here is absolutely perfect. I think tweens are going to connect with these characters big time and think about their own friendships. I mean I am old and have been noodling this line since I read it because YES this is what we worry about even after decades of friendship even when continents and oceans separate us: “Never leave me emotionally. Know what I mean?” I absolutely loved Book 1 and highly recommend it, but this is also a stand lone read perfectly timed for the end of school this spring.
I am sure I am not the right audience for this book about boy-crazy 8th graders who are spending a month together at a summer house. They have all been friends in the past, but things happened, and they are not going to the same schools, or living near each other, so they all miss each other.
The story is told by the three girls, but it is confusing because they all seem to have the same voice, and I have to check each time I start a new chapter. They talk a lot about missing each other, and about the boys they are dating, and about they love this lake home.
One of the problems is that I was never boy-crazy, so don't get that part. I'm sure if I were the right age, I would care about first kisses and stuff like that.
The other problem might be that this is the second book in the series about the paper fortune tellers that were so popular at that age, and how you could talk about what they meant. They are important to the story because they do give advice, and they keep popping up in places where they shouldn't.
So, this is probably a good book for young girls who are just starting to notice boys, and come into their own.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this story available for an honest review. This book is coming out the 6th of May 2025.
The premise of this book sounded really cute. Three girls who just finished 8th grade are going to a lake where one of the girls lives to spend time with each other for a month and babysit 3rd grade triplets. One of their common bonds are fortune tellers that they have been making since they were young. Only this time, fortune tellers mysteriously appear places.
Unfortunately, the story is not executed very well. While it does switch on and off narrators between each of the three main girls like many modern books, the dialogue feels very outdated. At times, things are overexplained and the dialogue feels cheesy and cringe. I can't imagine middle schoolers wanting to read this book and I think even upper elementary would find much of the dialogue to be cringe worthy. In addition, there is not a whole lot of plot to the book so I found myself skimming a lot of it. There are definitely better books out there to read. I only finished it because it fulfilled a hard category in a book challenge I am doing.
Although I usually love this author's books, this book dragged. It seemed that all the characters sounded the same. Also, though not the fault of the author, the edition I had skipped from p. 120 to 201 then to the 200s, repeating several pages in the 200s, then to 150s, back and forth. I never did find out what happened on p. 121 --p. 200. Even though the characters sounded the same, I did want to find out what happened...
This was a cute middle grade summer novel about female friendship and first crushes that was good on audio and perfect for fans of the Babysitter's club series or the Sisterhood of the travelling pants. I liked it and am sure that young girls will enjoy it a lot. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio and digital copy in exchange for my honest review!
Since it had been so long since I read the original, it took me a second to remember each character's back stories. I didn't really understand the resolution with the magic markers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.