Reading Metrics
Description
When Clo's father goes missing, she takes the mysterious items he left behind and journeys across the sea to find him. On her journey, she becomes stranded on a strange island and must learn to spin fish into yarn to unravel the secrets of what happened.
Quick Summary
If you've got a kid who loves stories where magic feels a little weird and totally unexpected, this one delivers. The whole premise of a girl learning to spin fish into yarn on a strange island is unlike anything else out there, and it stays with you. It's got that perfect mix of adventure and heart Clo's journey to find her missing father gives everything an emotional pull, but there's also plenty of mystery and some genuinely clever moments as she figures out the island's strange rules. It moves at a good pace for the middle-grade crowd, and while it's a bit longer, the writing keeps things interesting enough that kids actually want to keep turning pages. Parents should know it touches on themes of loss and family, but it's handled in a gentle, ultimately hopeful way. If your reader enjoyed the creativity and wonder of something like "The Wild Robot" or the quirky magical problem-solving in "The Mysterious Benedict Society," they'll probably fall for this too.