The Legendary Library

As a mom to a little girl, I am always looking for books to build my daughter and show her that girls can do ANYTHING, and this book is one of our favorites! It follows a little girl named Rosie and her quest to become a fantastic inventor. I would hate to give spoilers, but suffice it to say, she is very creative and determined. This book is wonderful to show such drive in a young girl and how she (and ultimately the book) breaks boundaries by showing girls involved in STEM fields (STEM=Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). Women (and girls) are historically absent, or completely barred in some instances, from pursing education and careers in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. With limited role models in these areas, many young girls grow up believing that they shouldn’t pursue those disciplines as a direct result, as well as general societal pressure to pursue a historically acceptable role for females. Luckily, it is books such as ROSIE...

I originally read this book when I was in the 4th grade, and I love it as much now as I did then. For a young adult book, I felt the subject matter was something that many kids could relate to: Family, and more specifically that families come in many forms, but are always there when you need them. I felt the characters were also very relatable. I know that some reviews I have read previously for this book have indicated that they feel the 'over' use of hyphens (-) and ellipses (…) are not needed. I do disagree with this, as the author was trying to utilize these to indicate the slow drawl that a Southern accent would have, including these characters who were from Texas. Anyone who is from the Southeastern US or spoken to someone from the Southeastern US, understands that we speak slowly and we have an accent that accommodates our drawn out speech patterns. The author is merely using these punctuation marks in the capacity to which they are afforded, in this instance, ...

I did receive this book at no charge for my unbiased, honest opinion. Let me start by saying this is part of a series, which I did not realize when I ordered the book. However, even though this is part of a series, it was easily read even without the context of the other books in the series. It is definitely a story in the same fantasy genre as LOTR, Narnia, or Harry Potter. Very well written with great detail, it easily allows you to imagine the journey on which the characters embark. There are only 2 real complaints I have: 1] that the story line jumped around a bit; I feel like the author could have made it a bit easier to realize when the story jumps to another character's leg of the journey as it was a little hard to follow from one jump in the story at times. And 2] while the story isn't numbered or if (like me) you miss the small note in the upper corner of the cover indicating that it is part of a series, as  the reader, you have no idea there are books before it; t...