Hello, everyone!!! Welcome back!!! Isabelle Knight here again with a book review of a FANTASTIC book! So, as I’m sure you’ll know by now, I’ve joined MMGM (Marvelous Middle Grade Monday), which features a bunch of book reviews of middle-grade books from lots of different reviewers, and I was very lucky to meet the amazing Carol Baldwin and am now on her crew of book reviewers (on a temporary hiatus due to…. Well, chaotic life, but I shall be back after reviewing this book!!!)!
And I was even luckier to be able to receive a copy of a brand new, yet to be published, but AMAZING middle-grade historical novel!!!!! Which is the book I shall be reviewing today! And that book is…
The Peach Thief by Linda Joan Smith!!!
I absolutely cannot tell you how much I love this book! Historical fiction isn’t what I normally read, and it’s very hard for me to find good ones. But I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been given a digital copy of this book to review beforehand! It’s amazing, so heartfelt, the characters were amazing and deep, and this book has me laughing and crying at the same time!
So, The Peach Thief is about a workhouse orphan girl named Scilla, and it’s set in 1850s Lancashire, England. It started with the night Scilla dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall to steal a peach – the best thing she’s ever tasted in her life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and accidentally mistaken for a boy, she manages to get a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. And if she can keep up her deception, she’ll have a bed, food, and perhaps even somewhere she belongs. As the book progresses, she soon falls Phin, a garden apprentice (who is, by far, my least favorite character…), and the gruff head gardener is teaching Scilla about gardening and how to make all the plants grow. And I could go on and on about what happens, but then I’d be giving spoilers, and I’m sorry, but I am TERRIBLE at book summaries.
I have to say, I didn’t know what I was expecting when I signed myself up for this. Most of the books I read are contemporary or fantasy, and I haven’t read many historical novels. But I can say for certain that the book definitely surpassed all my expectations!!! It’s a beautiful book, wonderfully illustrated, and all its themes and lessons are woven wondrously through the storytelling.
The characters were amazing, and I feel like you can see how carefully the author created them and let them grow. Scilla felt so real, and as I read the book, I began to get to know her more and more, and I really started to feel for her and care for her and all her dreams!!! She’s just a workhouse girl, or so she thinks, but I feel like as the story progresses, you can clearly see she’s so much more than that – especially in the way she cares for all the plants and desperately wants to keep her place at the garden. She felt so deep and so real, like she’s a real person, and Linda Joan Smith writes the story in a way that gradually lets us see into her heart, bit by bit.
The plot is wonderful too, with a fair amount of stuff going on, along with quite a few shenanigans, but I think the book is mostly character-driven, and those are the books I absolutely love!! This is the kind of book where you get to really follow the character on their journey and really see them and learn about who they are, and I love that!!!! Another thing I love is that, even while there’s no evil sorceress destroying the world, it still has stakes – the main character’s world could still all come crumbling down! But the stakes are incredibly personal. Nothing much is going to happen with the other characters if Scilla’s world comes crumbling down. But to her, it feels like it means everything.
Another thing I loved was Linda’s writing style. It made me feel like I was right there with the characters, right there in that world and not in my makeshift office before a computer screen. I was right there in 1850s England, right there in the greenhouse, right there with Scilla all throughout her adventure, and I loved it! Her writing style really makes you think about what she means, and it feels like every single word has a deeper meaning, which is so powerful and it weaves all the themes and the incredibly powerful message together perfectly.
This book is now one of my favorites of all time! It’s really made its way deep into my heart and planted a seed there (see what I did? XD Sorry to anyone who eye-rolled. The pun was not intended but it showed up anyway), and it is such a beautiful book! It brought me to near tears towards the end, and it made me feel all these emotions at once – desperation, anger, sadness, and pure joy all at once, and I was laughing and crying and smiling. Which apparently is possible…
But yeah! I absolutely love this book, and I think everyone should read it!!! I would definitely give this book six stars out of five!!! (a rare rating reserved for only the bestest books that made me feel something). I highly recommend it to librarians, booksellers, parents, and of course, children. This is the kind of book that will immediately make you fall in love with it. I’d also recommend it to fans of the Newbery Honor books, especially When You Trap a Tiger. Because just like all the Newbery Honor books, this book makes you feel something, and it shows you something, through the words and the way the author tells the story. And now I’m suddenly wondering if this book is going to win the Newbery Honor Award… Random, I know, but I think it would be a book that deserves it very much!
And yeah! I guess this wraps up this book review of one of my favorite books ever!!! Thank you guys so much for coming, and I hope to see you again in the next blog post!!! And don’t forget to check out this book when it comes out! And then rave about it to everyone you meet! (I know I will. ;D Probably to the point where they’re gonna shout, ‘ISABELLE! WE GET IT, IT’S A WONDERFUL BOOK!’ and I talk their ear off with all my raving)
Isabelle
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