13 Little Blue Envelopes (by Maureen Johnson)

As mentioned in my last post, I picked up 13 Little Blue Envelopes after finishing Let It Snow and enjoying Maureen Johnson's story.  The book centers around a girl named Ginny; Ginny's aunt has died and left her 13 envelopes with instructions for taking a trip around the world and retracing her aunt's steps in the process.

I could nitpick some of the details of how this is set up, but mostly it's an excuse to send Ginny on an adventure, and on that level it's fun. I enjoyed vicariously visiting the cities along with Ginny, especially the ones I've been to before (Amsterdam, Rome). I would have liked more development of Ginny's character -- even though we spend the whole book with her, I didn't get a fully clear sense of her. I like how Johnson throws us into her adventure but a brief sense of who she was before, what and who she was leaving behind, would have been helpful.

Overall though, it was cute -- and I'll most likely read the sequel too!