totes my goat . . . and everything else

The Weird Sisters have a pet emporium and a detective agency, which comes in handy when the town’s tire swing is cut down and a robin goes missing. Yuckima, Hildegurp, and Glubbifer are on the cases, with their magic wand, special potions, a menagerie of animal friends, and their nine-year-old friend Jessica to help.

The mayor is happy to let them help, because he wants the tire swing to be restored, so he can cut the ribbon on its reopening. And Officer Nazeri wants to find out who was behind the vandalism.

With courage and creativity, the Weird sisters and Jessica go throughout the town to try to find out who could have cut down the tire swing. When they find out that a neighbor has recently bought a sharpener, they search him down to find out if he used the sharpener for a knife to cut the rope. Instead, they get chased away by a crazy lawnmower.

Add in a goat, a cat with a bell, a cake for a special occasion, and a love potion, and you’ve got a crazy adventure that kids will want to read about over and over.

The Weird Sisters is a crazy, creative kids’ book filled with wordplay and whimsy that reminded me of Roald Dahl or even of the Amelia Bedelia series. The book is filled with dynamic illustrations from Kari Rust, bringing these fascinating sisters to life. Author Mark David Smith brings a lot of playfulness to the characters and to the story, and I think kids will be drawn to the story (as I was).

I really enjoyed The Weird Sisters. I liked the wordplay a lot, emphasizing how words can have more than one meaning or how words can be changed a lot by switching out only one letter. Kids learning about the possibilities of language will find their horizons getting bigger, along with their vocabularies. And I love a character who can pull out any number of items from their clothes, exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. This book is a lot of fun, and can add some clever whimsy to summer reading. And there is even a recipe for seedcakes, for the robins in your kids’ world.

Egalleys for The Weird Sisters: A Robin, A Ribbon, and a Lawn Mower were provided by Owlkids Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks.