Molly's Promise

Gr 4–7—Seventh-grader Molly has a lot of uncertainty in her life. Her mother left when she was a baby. She struggles to fit in at school with either the First Nation kids or the white kids, and she is battling mean girls and her own self-esteem. The only thing she is certain of is that she wants to sing, and when the talent competition comes up, it's the perfect opportunity to show off her skills. The problem is that Molly has only ever sung in her head and promised herself that her mom would be the first one to hear her sing. In this small book with a lot of story packed into it, readers will enjoy the high drama of the characters introduced in A Different Game (2010) and Murphy and Mousetrap (2005, both Orca). Readers will relate to Molly's uncertainty as she tries something completely new, and her friends (the Formidable Four) offer lively relief to the seriousness of her situation. The writing lends itself to younger or reluctant readers, but the content (e.g., parental drug use) may prove difficult for some. The main difficulty, though, is that there are too many story lines. In such a short novel, they compete with one another and are ultimately distracting.—Sarah Townsend, Norfolk Public Library, VA