Editor’s Note: Good morning. Summer break kicks off this week and, for lots of parents, that means finding some perfect Summer reads for their families. Now, you can get some tips on THE tween Summer book list, and not from crazy, old parents.

Today, I’m excited to introduce Maddy Erickson as the newest addition to the crew of writers here at Our Big Earth. Maddy is our roving book reviewer and will be giving us the scoop on what’s hot and what’s not.

Maddy – a 10-year-old budding writer and avid reader is a fifth grader at Campbell River’s Ecole des Deux Mondes with a serious knack for storytelling.

So, no more rambling on by me. Here’s Maddy:

What would happen if your parents were botanists, and they seemed to love plants more than they loved you……..Well if you want to know you must read Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose by Diana Leszczynski

Fern Verdant and the Silver  Rose is a masterpiece in itself.  It is like reading a painting.  For me it was as if it was being painted before my very eyes.

Ferns mother, Lily Verdant had just returned home from another plant saving expedition when she received a phone call about a very rare Silver Rose.  Days later she jumped on a train in Nedlaw, Oregon, her family, not even Lily, ever would have anticipated that she would not return home!

Fern begins her frenzied adventure to bring her Mom home.  Before Fern starts her search, her obsessive father, Olivier Verdant, sends Fern to NITPC, the Nedlaw Institute for the Treatment and Prevention of Insantiy in Children to be treated for depression.  Fern was going to run away to find her Mother no matter what it took, when that terrible night a storm erupted and while everyone at NITPIC was panicking Fern snuck outside and jumped into the back of a truck to find her Mother.

To add to all the commotion, Fern discovers that she has a special gift.  The gift to talk to plants!

I think this goes right with the story line of the book, to me that made me feel so much closer to Fern.  It made the story so much more interesting!

She discovers this gift while trying out for cheer leading, she jumped and landed on the grass, to her amazement and shock something started screaming in her head!  Was it the grass?? No, plants can’t talk…or can they??

Now she finds out that the plants she hated at first are now her best friends.  Now her normal life is turned upside down!

She was about to tell her father when the Trumpet flower that her mother had given her cried “NO DON’T TELL HIM.”  No one knew if the Trumpet flower to late.  At the end of this book Fern learns not to judge anybody or anything to soon.

Filled with police investigations, a furious life guard and wild goose chase that you will really enjoy, ‘Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose’ is the perfect ‘snuggle up on a stormy night with a blanket and a book.

Where Ferns story ends……nobody knows!