Message in a Bottle: A Julie Mystery

American Girl Mysteries

by Kathryn Reiss, Juliana Kolesova (Illustrator)

When Julie visits Gold Moon Ranch, a farming commune in California's gold rush country, the back-to-the-land lifestyle seems idyllic at first. But peculiar problems keep cropping up - almost as if someone was trying to shut down the commune! Then, on a secret trip to an abandoned gold mine, Julie stumbles on a mysterious message that hints at long-lost treasure. Julie is desperate to find it before danger closes in on Gold Moon Ranch.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Historical, Childrens, Fiction, American History

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Kathryn Reiss was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Ohio, and received B.A. degrees in English and German from Duke University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. After college, she lived in Bonn, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and during this time wrote the first draft of her first novel, Time Windows.

Ms. Reiss is an award -winning author of 20 novels for kids and teens. She has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and the last of her seven children still in the nest. She is a Full Professor of English at Mills College at Northeastern University, and also teaches in the low -residency MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Reviews

[Danielle T · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started this, I thought "oh man, American Girl's about to teach kids about communes: let's see how well this goes in chapterbook format" but, it was really well crafted- a mystery with multiple potential suspects (and enough tells to indicate some obvious ones were red herrings but still stringing the reader along) and planting some seeds for young readers to think about how farm communities can change to stay afloat while not betraying their structure. Like The Tangled Web: A Julie Mystery, the Vietnam War floats indirectly as the reason why some of the adults have made certain choices, but as Julie is a 10 year old, she doesn't know the nitty gritty details of that.

[ElsaMakotoRenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very solid middle grade AG mystery! I really enjoyed this and felt the actual mystery portion was very well done. Sometimes the AG mysteries are soooo predictable they are barely mysteries at all, and I was delighted Message in a Bottle actually made me work and think to figure it out, whilst having multiple smaller plot threads going and not feeling...messy. I would have loved this when I was 10/11 like Julie and I still loved it now, so yay.

Would highly recommend this one if you like the AG mysteries!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great AG marathon continues. Again, reading for the first time as an adult.

I've had this book on my shelf for two years - heck, I actually have two copies on my shelf - and yet it wasn't until I was halfway through the book that I actually took a careful look at the cover. Given the title and Julie's proximity to the ocean, I had assumed that this was going to be about a bottle washing up on shore, but that isn't it at all.

Instead, Julie and her mom spend the book at a commune where her aunt and cousin live. They're a crunchy granola, harmony-with-nature kind of group, but they seem to be on the decline. They're in a tight spot financially and developers want to buy their land. Things keep going wrong, and most of it seems to be sabotage.

Julie's uncle is absent but much-discussed for most of the book - he can't do farm work in the way he used to because of a Vietnam War injury. A reader who didn't know anything about the war would come away with a vague sense that there was controversy, but nothing really concrete.

Meanwhile, there's also an old gold rush era mine on the property that is definitely too dangerous for the kids to explore - meaning, of course, that we definitely wind up there on several occasions. The mysterious message in the bottle is found in the forest near the mine, and is clearly old, but how old is it?

Julie's aunt, uncle and cousin are the only new characters who really leave much of an impression, and I'm not convinced I could have figured out the culprit with the information I was given, but I was reasonably entertained once I got into the book.

More Julie babble:

Meet Julie | Julie Tells Her Story | Happy New Year, Julie | Julie and the Eagles | Julie's Journey | Changes for Julie

Good Luck, Ivy

The Tangled Web | The Puzzle of the Paper Daughter | The Silver Guitar | Lost in the City | Message in a Bottle

A Brighter Tomorrow

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author lost me right at the beginning, when she forgot the name of Julie's friends and announced that C.J. was away for the summer. His name is T.J. (I'd just finished reading another Julie mystery, The Silver Guitar: A Julie Mystery, where he's a main character.

I think the rest of the book didn't know what it was trying to be. Bringing Julie and her mom to a commune to meet a completely unknown branch of the family was overly contrived, just so they could put Julie in an interesting setting. The end rescue in a mine that so coincidentally started flooding this day after 100 years was just needless drama. But it's Raymond's family that failed big. His parents are newly separated, but come back together when he's in danger and magically decide they can work out all their problems after all. It's probably what every kid wishes for when their parents break up but it's not realistic. In fact, Julie is the first American Girl with divorced parents, and the thru-line of her first three books was that it stinks, but a family still works in a different shape. It felt like Raymond was negating Julie's arc.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my youngest's favorite of the American Girl Mysteries we have read and he actually wanted to read it a second time. It's in my top tier, for sure, though I still think the Caroline mysteries are best. We hadn't read any of the Julie books prior to this one and were still able to connect with our title character and her family situation. I really loved the setting here with the 1970s commune in California's Gold Country -- I grew up in a different part of the Gold Country (very close to Coloma, where gold was discovered) so I could really relate to the ambiance and history and felt Reiss did a good job bringing that to life. The storyline involving Julie's cousin and his parents' separation was touching and felt authentic perhaps the resolution is a bit rosy-colored -- I didn't mind that. though, considering the general feel of the AG books is optimistic. I was surprised and impressed impressed with the variety of important subjects relevant to the 1970s were touched upon in this book, including Julie's uncle being a Vietnam vet and struggling from the effects of serving in the war. Nothing felt too overwhelming for the target audience, but I did find this one of the more emotionally gripping of the AG Mysteries I've read so far.

[Rachel Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Message in a Bottle was such a fun mystery story, and exceedingly well written for being a middle-grade book for children. Kathryn Reiss's setup and resolution of a mystery story at Gold Moon Ranch is entertaining and engaging, and it does well building suspense for both main character Julie and her readers to follow along with. It's a bit slow to start as far as explaining the background of the ranch and its recent plights, but it soon picks up with action between Julie and her cousin Raymond sneaking around, finding clues, and trying to solve what's going on in their midst. And it has several wholesome moments along the way too and of course at the end!

[Rosemarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Julie. She is one of my favorite American Girls, mainly because she grows up in the 1970s, just like I did. But I have read more interesting Julie stories.

This one takes place on a Commune, and you learn what that kind of life was all about, but as a result, there aren't a lot of references to 70's pop culture because these people have no TV, radios, etc. They don't even have phones. It makes me wonder why they couldn't live on a Commune and have a community TV room where everyone got a turn to choose the program? I appreciate the desire to live close to nature and out of the city, but not even a phone? They can't even call for help.

Julie's mom gets a letter from her sister who lives on the commune asking for help. There have been mysterious things happening on the Gold Moon Ranch where Julie's aunt and cousin Raymond live. Julie has never met her cousin, and has not seen her aunt in a long time. They can't call and tell them they are coming, so Julie and her mom pack up the car and drive out there as soon as they can.

The mystery is pretty much what you'd expect. There is a gold mine on the ranch that goes back to the days of the San Francisco gold rush. Of course, whenever there is an abandoned mine involved, someone has to get trapped in it, and there has to be a scary rescue. :)

Julie does a great job of solving the mystery and helping to save her cousin Raymond from the mine. I still like Julie, and if you do, this might be worth checking out. It's not bad in any way...just not terribly new and exciting.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun to enter the commune community. The pluses of the garden and home food preservation were fun to read about. Many people never discontinued the practice of home food preservation relying on their gardens or even produce grown locally. Only one member of my family was continuing the recipes of our grandmother and winning prizes for recipes of hers in the state fairs.
I guess we are all learning about flooding and its dangers this year too.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one a lot. It was a different story than I was expecting- a little heavy on the content. The mysteries were not connected to each other, but they all concluded nicely and made sense. I really liked Julie's character in this one.

[Little Seal]

This was the scariest mystery to me so far mostly because of the Nutty Putty Cave making me terrified of ever getting stuck in a cave, and also going into a car with a stranger (besides ride sharing) (thankfully Julie did mention that it's not something you should do!).

[Hannah Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for fun because my younger sister was reading it for a book club. Even though I am definitely above the target audience it was nice to escape back into my childhood for a night.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this book!!!!julie is soooo fun and when she finds the bottle by the riverbank`and finds the answers to the long lost famliy mystery...

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vietnam, pollution, healthy lifestyles, lava lamps and communes....it's the seventies! Julie and her mother visit a California commune and become embroiled in a mystery!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mystery perfect for young children and people of all ages. I liked the peek into commune life and the peacefulness of the country.

[Jaime]

makes me want to live in a cabin

[Panda Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

This well-paced, engaging mystery is far better than most of the adult books I've been reading in the genre lately. I appreciate how well the historical setting, story, and character development were woven together without any drag or pacing problems, and admire how well the plot was constructed. Even though Julie isn't an American Girl from my childhood and thus has no nostalgia factor for me, I found this book enormously satisfying.

[August Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally really enjoyed and would recommend 👌

[Mgrones · Rating 5 out of 5]

An example of American Girl at its best. Engaging, perfectly paced, age appropriate, with a realistic look at a time when children were free to walk to town, roam by the river, and play in tree houses without supervision. Adults only worried if they didn't return in time for supper.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction R378j 2017

[Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming time trip to the 1970's, coupled with a relaxing saunter in the California Gold Country, until things get mysterious and there are some creepy goings-on.

This is a carefully crafted story, full of fine details that make the characters, their conversations and their activities come alive. We are with Julie as she and her cousin Raymond struggle to save the Gold Moon Ranch from shady developers, encounter danger at an abandoned gold mine and discover a link to the past.

Another work of quality from author Kathryn Reiss.