Lawn Mower Magic (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) [Hardcover]

Lynne Jonell (Author), Brandon Dorman (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: February 28, 2012 | Age Range: 6 - 9 years | Series: A Stepping Stone Book(TM)

With a POP! and a puff of smoke, the Willows' lawn mower calls it quits. A new mower will cost their parents a lot of money, money Derek had hoped to borrow for a train ticket to visit a friend. Luckily Derek and his brother and sisters find a rusty push mower tucked away in the shed. It doesn't look like much, but it turns out that it's been soaking up magic for years. And it's hungry for grass!

Can Derek earn his ticket? Maybe . . . if he, Abner, Tate, and Celia can keep the magic mower under control!

Lynne Jonell follows up her Junior Library Guild selection, Hamster Magic, with a second story of the Willow family's rowdy run-ins with mixed-up magic.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In addition to her first book about the Willow family, Hamster Magic, which was both a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award for Young People's Literature, LYNNE JONELL is the author of the popular book Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, a Booklist Editor's Choice, and one of School Library Journal's Best Books of the Year. She has also written three other novels and seven picture books. Lynne is not particularly fond of mowing, but then again, she's never been lucky enough to have a magic mower.

BRANDON DORMAN has created hundreds of illustrations for books and magazines, including the cover art for the Newbery Honor Book Savvy. He loves string cheese and sunflower seeds, and once licked a slug. He lives in Puyallup, Washington, with his wife and two rambunctious sons.

Product Details

• Age Range: 6 - 9 years
  
• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (February 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375866612
• ISBN-13: 978-0375866616
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Not much of a plot here, but likable characters. June 24, 2012

By jwitt33

Format:Hardcover

I received a copy of this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'm always looking for good middle grade books to get my sons more interested in reading, and since they love Harry Potter, I figured this book would be even better because it has "magic" right in the title! I was unfortunately not really excited by it, though. The book is a nice short one, especially good for kids with shorter attention spans, but there's really no plot to it, and even less character development! The book takes place in one day, when the kids try to mow their large lawn with a rotary mower to save their parents the money of getting a new gas powered mower, in the hopes that Derek will be able to use that money instead to ride the train to visit some of his old friends (the family recently moved to the boonies from the city). Alas, while the mower was sitting in the shed, it soaked up magic apparently from the soil, although I was never really sure about how the magic got there in the first place. When I requested the book I wasn't aware that it was the second one in a series, so maybe all of this was explained in the first book. I just know that I was left with a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the book.

Basically, this was a book without a plot, without character development, and with unexplained questions at the end. The kids were likable, though, and the book was short (only 112 pages), so it wasn't a chore to read, but I don't think I'll be reading any more in this series.