In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Trouble with Twins
  • Jeannette Hulick
Freeman, Martha The Trouble with Twins; illus. by Cat Bowman Smith. Holiday House, 2007 [85p] ISBN 978-0-8234-2025-4$16.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-5

The previous In the Cards novel (In the Cards: Love, BCCB 1/07) introduced readers to Anna, Eve, and Syd, a trio of three friends who use a pack of tarot cards to help them find answers about their future, with a different friend getting a card reading in each book. This time it's the turn of mercurial Eve, who's desperate to be a famous actress and dismissive of everything else. When the school decides to stage Cabaret, it's put up or shut up time for Eve, and the cards are suggesting that the production may be the way she finally catches the eye of a producer—or are they? Fredericks demonstrates her usual canny sympathy for her young protagonist, with prickly, self-absorbed Eve a character who's not immediately likable but whose anxieties ("Did everybody get picked for the famous and nobody teams, and I'm with the nobodies?") are familiar and credible. The book gently moves Eve along the experiential road so that she begins to grasp that stardom does actually involve some hard work and smaller achievements along the way, and it's authentic in pulling her ethical limits from a desire to differentiate herself from really mean girls as much as an awareness that the jealous treatment of the show's star is cruel and destructive. As with the previous title, the cards are a convenient device for structuring the narrative without overwhelming it, and the three friends are vivid and varied; the story will leave readers wanting more and happy that they'll be getting it in the upcoming volume focusing on Syd.

...

pdf

Share