Monday, August 13, 2018

Book Review: Ms. Mulligan and the Enchanted Ice Cream

I had to take a couple of days off from blogging last week because I was just exhausted. I feel like summer is almost done and my to-do list increases exponentially once school starts, so I'm trying to chill out when I can. So that's what I did.

Ms. Mulligan and the Enchanted Ice Cream - Tiffany Elaine

Ms. Mulligan lives a charmed life. Literally.

Tabby Easterland wakes on her twelfth birthday to find herself magically transformed into the twenty-five-year-old "Ms. Mulligan," an event witnessed only by her young friends - the platinum-haired southern belle Dolly Hargrave and the hard-boiled urban detective wannabe Kat Dorsett. Hiding her true identity, Ms. Mulligan becomes a teacher at her own school, where a desperate search for answers lead the girls to seek out Tabby's long-lost father, discover an ancient mystical society, and fight the evil Black and White Sisters--witches determined to complete a long-planned curse upon Tabby. In a race against time, will love be enough to overcome the crippling curse and restore Tabby to her former self?

Although ripe with humor, romance, and thrills, Ms. Mulligan ultimately reveals something deeper - Tabby's surprising discovery of inner strength and the bonds of love that persevere even amid the darkest of threats.

Alright, so this book was kind of adorable in all of the best ways. Do you remember that movie with Jennifer Garner called 13 Going On 30? This book reminded me of that. We have twelve year old Tabby who suddenly wakes up one day and she's 25 year old Ms. Mulligan. Together with her friends Dolly and Kat they try to fix the situation only to find themselves in the middle of some bigger magic. The book is full of unique and fun characters, it tackles some bigger topics in a way that this age group can relate to (like having an absent parent come back after a long time and how to accept that in a healthy way). It also tackles the topic of adults making decisions that kids maybe don't understand because they aren't always able to look around at all of the circumstances and are really very insular in their thoughts. Which is kind of deep stuff for a middle grade book but as an adult I caught it, though I don't know that someone in the middle grades group necessarily would.

I'm giving this book a solid 4 stars but I'm also going to say that I hope this really is the start of a series and I am excited to read the next book which is Ms. Mulligan doing her thing with the Council of Butterflies. The only thing keeping this from 5 stars is that I hoped there was going to be more.... stuff to the book? Action, drama, something. I get that this was the exploratory book that explains things but I really liked the Black and White Sisters (who are witches) and I had kind of hoped we would have this climatic event or something. I don't think the middle grade reader would miss that, and they will love this regardless, but as a grown up reading it, I'm used to the lead up of a big event and then the come down from that.

I do recommend this for teachers looking to freshen up their classroom library or maybe a third grade teacher who wants to challenge their avid readers. Fourth and fifth grade kids can easily read this and understand what's going on. Honestly, it would be a fun teacher read book for even second graders because they would like the story but are maybe not strong enough readers to do it on their own. I'm a big fan of teacher led story time. The chapters are relatively short which makes this a good read for parents and their kids, too. And I hate to even say this out loud, but.... Christmas is coming and this would be a nice gift book for emergent readers. It's a little Nancy Drew with a little Magic Treehouse, a little Harry Potter lite, a whole lot of fun.

   

1 comment:

Heather J @ TLC Book Tours said...

This sounds like such a fun read! Thanks for being on the tour.