Green by Laura Peyton Roberts

Roberts, Laura Peyton. Green.
Does anyone remember rule number one of writing fiction for middle grades? Start the book with an explosion! Ms. Roberts kindly complies, and continues with a funny, fresh fantasy involving gold, leprechauns and intrigue.

Lily is struggling with fitting into school, dealing with the death of her grandmother, and not having a great 13th birthday, but things become exciting very quickly when a birthday package explodes and three leprechauns show up to whisk her away to their world, where she finds out that she is in line to be Keeper of their gold in the wake of her grandmother's passing. In order to be made Keeper, she must pass three trials to prove her abilities and loyalties. All goes well until she is supposed to steal gold from the Scarlet clan, and she is double-crossed by both their Keeper and a member of her own clan. Armed with advice from her grandmother ("It never hurts to take a sweater." --Words I certainly live by!), can she overcome the obstacles? And will there be a sequel in which she somehow connects with her grandmother?

This was SUCH an enjoyable book! The humor was absolutely delicious, the action and adventure palpable, and the characters fun. The Lily's struggles with missing her grandmother were handled lightly enough to not overshadow the fun, but added an extra layer of depth that I appreciated. The other brilliant thing was that, especially given the cover, it is entirely possible that boys could be persuaded to read this one, too. Why are their not more leprechauns in middle grade fiction? I'll definitely have to look for other titles by this author.

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Oh. It's Friday, isn't it? Should have thought of that while picking out my reading material last night. Guy Fridays will return next week. The schedule this year has been crazy, and I apologize for not having more reviews to post.

Did get a little distracted last night with The Ohio E Book Project. I managed to download This World We Live In and listened to it on my MP3 player while doing laundry, dishes, etc. Downloaded Blubber and The Cat Ate My Gymsuit for Picky Reader, and with Cat, it is actually possible to burn the recording to CD. This could be very useful for some of my struggling readers.

I am seriously considering purchasing a Nook but still need to investigate the PDF capabilities of the device. I would never pay actual money for Ebooks, but if I could use it for E ARCS, free classics, and PDF versions that I can check out of the library, it might be worth it. The one thing I have noticed about both print and audio Ebooks is that browsing for random titles is rather a nightmare.