Eva is a reader. She reads better than most kids her age and even a bit older. On our last parent/teacher conference her teacher encouraged us to not only read her short books but chapter books as well. So, when I got the chance to review some new chapter books from Disney I was excited read them to Eva. The books were sent to us to read and review. Opinions are 100% our own. The books are geared towards tween girls and involve the adventures of Minnie and Daisy before Mickey and Donald entered their lives. The stories revolve around growing up with all of the challenges that young girls go through.
The books that we received were Much Ado About Juliet and The Pesky Pet as well as the Minnie and Daisy magazine. Eva and I read the entirety of Much Ado About Juliet and have started reading The Pesky Pet. She has looked at the Magazine with me and also on her own at night. She reads by her Starry Night Lantern at night till she falls asleep.
Much Ado About Juliet is a story about having a crush, feeling betrayed by your best friend and coming to the realization that your friendship is most important. In this book we see the personalities of Minnie and Daisy defined. Daisy is an athletic person, she loves playing sports and challenging herself physically. Minnie is introspective and enjoys crafting. She’s friendly, thoughtful and kind. The girls are great friends, Best Friends Forever, actually. The book is about Minnie wanting to get noticed by a boy who is the best actor in the school so she works very hard to audition for the school play. Unfortunately through a series of events she never gets her chance and Daisy ends up playing Juliet to the crush’s Romeo. There are hurt feelings, truthful conversations and some very funny moments in the story.
The overall story was good but I found at least one piece of dialog that I changed mid reading and that was Minnie telling the boy that she had a crush on who was really a terrible person, to drop dead. I just don’t see Minnie ever saying that and it seemed a bit out of character to me. The book is a definitely more for tweens. I do tend to edit things as I read them to keep Eva a kid and not grow up too fast but overall the story was good and the resolution was something that we could talk about together.
The second book we just started the other night and it looks to be about responsibility. Daisy wants a surfboard and she has no money and even less time because of all the extra curricular things that she is already doing. We read this together to get Eva’s ind off of a pain in her hand. I had tried to get her to breathe and calm down but reading is what did the trick. It got her mind off of her pain and she settled down enough to get to sleep. I’ll have to read the rest of the book myself to see how it turns out.
The Magazine was a cute one with activities, quizzes and there was even a comic that was the Much Ado About Juliet story. Eva read that one on her own after we read the book.
Overall I liked the books and the magazine and Eva really enjoyed them. I know that she likes something when she goes and starts drawing things that she remembers from the books. There are more books coming and they are $6.99 each, the magazine sells for $4.99 an issue. The books are also eBooks.