Violet in Bloom (A Flower Power Book #2)

by Lauren Myracle

Overview

Katie-Rose, Violet, Milla, and Yasaman—four girls with seemingly little in common but their flower names—are nurturing their new friendship and are busy building luvyabunches.com, their very own social-networking site. Their first flower-power task? A doomed campaign to get their school to serve healthier snacks. The Jelly-Yums they champion—soon dubbed “beans of grossness”—taste like candied beets. And that’s just the start of their troubles. A scheming classmate tries to drive a wedge between Katie-Rose and Yasaman, Violet may have been slammed in a secret journal, and poor Milla unintentionally commits hamstercide. It will take all the strength and genuine affection of these pals to weather a particularly stormy week of fifth grade.

Bestselling author Lauren Myracle brings her understanding of the weight of fifth-grade dramas to another hilarious and memorable book that preteens will love!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810989832
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Series:	Flower Power Series , #2
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.40(d)
Lexile:	700L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Lauren Myracle is the author of the New York Times bestselling Internet Girls series (ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r), Rhymes with Witches, and Bliss, among many other books for teenagers and young people. She grew up in Atlanta, is a graduate of the Vermont College MFA program in writing for children and young adults, and lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her family. Visit her online at www.laurenmyracle.com.

Editorial Reviews

Inspired by their floral names, four best friends form the Flower Power Club and vow to make the world a better place. Together the fifth graders battle for healthier school snacks while learning about the power of friendship but each girl also has problems she must fight on her own. In alternating chapters they take turns narrating giving the reader an insight into the individuals while still following the group's arc. Violet's mom has been admitted to a psych ward and she struggles to come to terms with the boundaries of their new and fragile relationship. Milla accidentally kills her crush's pet and is afraid to show her face at school again. Katie-Rose and Yasaman are caught in a battle of jealousy with a third classmate. Various family dynamics, races and physical abilities are represented and there is an underlying theme that everyone has goodness within them regardless of appearances, stereotypes or labels. Each girl is well-rounded and likeable while still being flawed and realistic. Myracle perfectly grasps the ups and downs of tween-hood. The format is highly appealing with bright colors and fun fonts. There are also blog posts, e-vites, chat conversations and video scripts interspersed throughout the text and an actual corresponding website for additional interaction. This second book in the "Flower Power" series is a great read for girls. Reviewer: Amy McMillan

Children's Literature - Amy McMillan

Gr 4–6—Having established their "friends-forever" status in Love Ya Bunches (Abrams, 2009), the girls with the flower names find that there are just as many highs and lows in maintaining relationships as in starting them. Thoroughly attuned to girl world, Myracle's spot-on, realistic moments include Katie-Rose's bouts of insecurity in response to a manipulative classmate, Yasaman's learning to stand up for herself and her friends, and Camilla's suppressing her fear of hamsters to get closer to her crush. Violet's conflicted emotions about visiting her mother in the hospital serves as a heartfelt balance to the madcap drama. The chat and text speak ("I haz date!!!"), slang (adorkable), blog posts, and occasional screenplay format established in the first book continue here, though the story can stand on its own. In other words, this is trademark Myracle, and those who heart her books will lurve, er, love this one too.—Joanna K. Fabicon, Los Angeles Public Library

School Library Journal

Fifth grade BFFs Katie-Rose, Yasaman, Violet and Camilla ride again in this stride-hitting second entry in the Flower Power series (Luv Ya Bunches, 2009). Once again, readers drop in on the girls during a particularly eventful, anxiety-riddled week at Rivendell Elementary: Katie-Rose struggles with her concern that sneaky Natalia might be weaseling her way into Yasaman's good graces, while Milla wrestles with her longstanding crush on adorkable Max and Violet finally visits her mother in the mental health clinic and champions the class outcast, Cyril, taking a stand against the epically odious Modessa. All of this takes place against a backdrop of youthful nutrition-related activism—Yasaman discovers that their school-selected snacks, Cheezy Nips, are full of trans fats, contain no cheese and are made by a company that engages in animal cruelty. Myracle is particularly adept at conveying the hilariously, touchingly messy inner lives of preteens, and with the first book's exposition out of the way, all the flower friends' wonderful neuroses, blunders, kindnesses and grace notes blossom into a realistic, easy-to-relate-to riot of pre-adolescent exuberance. A triumph. (Fiction. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews