Middleton, Dana Open If You Dare

Middleton, Dana        Open If You Dare      Macmillan/ Feiwel & Friends           2017   279p   16.99  978-1-250-08572-6            ms/jr  Realistic Fiction VG-BN 

When Rose has to move to England with her family and Ally’s baseball pitching turns sour, Birdie tries to help both at the same time she comes to terms with her own feelings about being alone as she embarks on her journey to middle school.  A mysterious letter sets the three on a crime-solving mission that keeps them guessing.      

A reader makes a journey when reading, and young teenaged girls will definitely enjoy the journey of three protagonists, stars of this new book by Dana Middleton.  A book of note needs to be special, exuding a certain element of warmth, or drama, or entertainment, as it were.  The strength of this book of note lies in the way three girls change as they navigate their final summer together before Rose moves to England with her family and Ally goes to a different middle school than Birdie, the story’s narrator.  It is plain to see that Birdie is scared of being alone.  But characters need to show growth, and in this case, all experience new learnings that will shape them as they move forward in this world, especially Birdie.  Rose is a violinist.  She is in love with Romeo, a classmate who happens to be in love with someone else.  Birdie is keeping a big secret from Rose, which is that Romeo loves Birdie.  Ally is a baseball star pitcher, undeterred by her female status in a man’s world.  Quite surprisingly, she inadvertently allows her brother to influence her negatively when she overhears him ranting about his lack of success and his sister’s shining talent.  The inciting incident happens right away when the three girls find a wire around the base of a tree, a wire which they unravel to reveal a hidden box.  Inside that box is a mystery which will become Birdie’s obsession throughout the novel with these words, “”If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.”  All the while she tries to figure out who was murdered and by whom, the three girls play out the dramas in each of their lives.  Rose must reconcile her unhappiness at the move to England.  Ally must find out how to channel the angst that she feels with her ever-deteriorating pitching  and Birdie finds conflict with her family, her friends and herself, especially when she is stymied by two more clues she discovers when trying to solve the mystery of the missing girls.   Middleton knows the true voice of an early teen, she crafts a seamless plot and her characters share conflicts that are experienced by all of us.                                      Squaresky, Martha          solving crime occupies girls’ last summer together