Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy
Publishing date: August 19, 2025
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Synopsis:
In this modern-day fairytale, Greta struggles to make her mark until she succumbs to the mischief of an enchanted doll.
Greta Starr has one dream: to be a famous reporter. Unfortunately she’s been assigned to write for the paper’s most boring beat, and she feels stuck. Then, on her twelfth birthday, Greta receives a mysterious cuckoo clock with a wooden dancer named Lulu inside. Every hour, the doll twirls in time with the music—until one night she comes to life. Lulu is infused with magic and mischief. With Lulu’s sly encouragement, Greta engineers a feel-good story to report, setting in motion a series of remarkable, if deceitful, happy endings at school that help Greta gain popularity. But when the truth threatens Greta’s friendships, she is confronted with very real consequences that Lulu’s magic can’t fix.
This coming-of-age story explores the blurred line between fact and fiction as Greta realizes the key to being a great reporter—and a great friend—is striving for truth, not perfection.
MY REVIEW
I love middle grade fantasy and this book had so many fun twists, adding in lessons learned along the way.
If you had a chance to leave your problems behind would you do it? Greta meets the magical Lulu in a coocoo clock she receives for her 12th birthday. Greta’s love of fairytales and Into the Woods is woven through the story. Possibly Grimm Lulu offers Greta a chance to start over, but there are consequences. Meanwhile Greta is trying to find her to place in the school paper (I enjoyed the headlines), and the musical, and makes mistakes along the way.
With the mistakes, there are lessons learned. There are many relatable moments as a theme: middle school is challenging, lies have a way to find us, sometimes our friends shine, maybe they’re better at things than we are. But things always get better and there is value in family and friend relationships.
The illustrations were darling and added so much the story too.
4 out of 5 stars.
Melissa Dassori lives in New York City with her husband and three daughters, with whom she especially likes to enjoy books, travel, time outside and ice cream. Melissa’s middle grade debut, J.R. Silver Writes Her World, was published in 2022 by Christy Ottaviano Books/Little, Brown BYR. An assignment from her own fourth grade teacher inspired the story, although Melissa couldn’t conjure the same magical results that J.R. Silver can. Her next middle grade novel, Greta Ever After (Ottaviano/LBYR), will be out in August 2025.
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