Published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

Summary:  Mia is excited to be moving back to Burlington, Vermont, where she hopes she can help save her grandmother’s cricket farm.  Although Gram is feisty and determined, she’s recently had a stroke, and it’s beginning to look like someone is trying to sabotage her farm.  During summer vacation, Mia gets involved with two day camps: one a place where she can create a business plan to help her grandmother, and the other a camp where kids learn to navigate Ninja Warrior-style obstacles.  Mia’s not quite up to the obstacles, having suffered a badly broken arm at gymnastics not long ago. As the summer goes on, the reader learns of the sexual harassment by one of the coaches that led to her accident and destroyed her confidence.  By summer’s end, she’s begun to regain some of that confidence by making friends, growing physically stronger, helping Gram, and finally talking to some other women in her life about her gymnastics experience. 240 pages; grades 5-8.

Pros:  There seem to be more middle grade novels lately that address the sexual harassment issue, and this one does it with lots of other fun plot lines, including a pretty good mystery.

Cons:  The story seemed a bit too agenda-driven; it would have been nice to see some strong, sympathetic male characters as well as the many female ones.

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