Every once in a while a book comes along that blows you away with how deeply it makes you feel. A book that can destroy you and make you hopeful all at the same time. A book that makes you reflect on yourself, and examine the events of your life. Children’s literature at its best is particularly adept at producing titles like this, as is thoroughly proven by Amanda Rawson Hill‘s “The Three Rules of Everyday Magic“. The book releases on September 25th, and let me just say up front that I think you should go ahead and pre-order your copy today.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced reader copy of this gem. I write this review now in the wee hours of the morning because, having just finished it, my mind won’t stop turning the book over long enough for me to sleep. I keep thinking about the main character, and what she’s gone through. What she will go through following the novel’s bittersweet ending.
Everything is falling apart for Kate. Several months ago, her dad disappeared. Weighed down under crippling depression, he left Kate and her mother to try and get better. Now his mother, Kate’s Grammy, is starting to forget things. Where she is. What she’s doing. Kate’s mom says eventually Grammy will start to forget her, too. If all that wasn’t enough for one girl to take, Kate’s best friend Sophia gets cast in the musical Annie. Though Sophia begs Kate to do the show with her, Kate can’t. Because that would require singing. And Kate can’t sing without her dad. So, as school starts up again, Kate is slowly losing her best friend to new interests and friends. The only thing that stays true is her karate lessons, but even there she’s thrown some curveballs when longtime out of school friend (and, I suspect, secret crush) Parker reveals that he’s no longer being homeschooled and will be in Kate’s class this year.
But Grammy has a secret that might just help set everything right. Magic. Everyday magic. The kind that comes out when you do something nice for someone. The kind that comes back when you send good things out into the world. Like all magic, though, everyday magic has rules for making it work…
From these beginnings unfolds a story where the stakes are heartwrenching. The color pink means more than you ever realized. Peanut butter cookies might just be the most powerful things in the universe. In the center of it all, music is at the very heart of what brings people together… and what keeps them apart.
To be honest, this book surprised me. I figured it would be good, but I hadn’t expected to like it as much as I did, which made how well the novel delivered all the more satisfying.
Kate is the kind of hero everyone can root for, because everyone can relate to her in some way. Whether you’ve experienced the gradual loss of a friend, watched a family member fade before your eyes to a mental illness and felt powerless to help, or simply been overwhelmed by everything that’s changing in your life, you can find some way to connect with her.
The story is one of tragedy and hope all rolled into one. Though it doesn’t provide any answers, it does let us know that, yes, life moves on. Even when it seems that it can’t. Even when it seems that it shouldn’t. And even though it seems those ways, life moving on is still a good thing.
And magic? Well, magic works if you believe in it. But, not always in the ways you expect it to.
A middle-grade novel that kids and adults alike can devour, “The Three Rules of Everyday Magic” easily gets five out of five stars from me. This wonderful book releases on September 25th, so I highly recommend you go pre-order your copy today.
