Deals with loss and renewal in a powerful way

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	• Welcome To Camden Falls (Main Street) Ann M Martin Scholastic Paperbacks, 2007 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Deals with loss and renewal in a powerful way

Losing a parent is one of the most devastating experiences a child can have. Losing both at once is even more so. Welcome to Camden Falls (audiobook) captivated my eight-year-old daughter for hours as she quietly listened to the story of Ruby and Flora's lives unfold. Having lost both parents in a freak auto accident, both children are sent to live with their grandmother, Min, named due to her "in a minute" attitude when the kids would come visit to her and want to play.

When asked what interested my daughter the most in the story, she couldn't really put it to words. My guess is she could relate to both the eight and eleven-year-old characters the most. Since I spent a great deal of my young adult life in New England, I enjoyed listening to the story as the author created a world of time and place I could vividly imagine. Although some of the concepts in the book are meant for 9-12 years olds, I think even eight-year-olds can enjoy many parts of the story. A delightful book!

Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, lives near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children.

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the beginning of another great series

it is difficult to not think of "the baby-sitters club" when thinking of ann m. martin. i loved that series and my sister and i read and re-read the books until they fell apart in our hands. she created believable characters that we wished we could befriend. she does that again here, in a place called camden falls. it's a small town where everyone knows everyone else. flora and lucy are two sisters who find themselves suddenly uprooted from their homes when their parents die in an accident. their grandmother, min, comes to take them back to her home. the girls struggle to adjust to life without their parents and life in a new place but they have plenty of help. their grandmother's shop "needle and thread" serves as a workplace as well as a meet and greet. they have a friend, olivia, and soon will meet nikki to complete the group of 4. ann m. martin takes us into people homes, looking into their windows and their lives, to give us a sense of the community, and sets the stage for another great series for girls.

i eagerly await the second book of the series that is set to come out august 1st!

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Courtesy of Teens Read Too

I really enjoyed reading the first book in the new MAIN STREET series by Ann M. Martin. I am glad that she is doing another series. I have many girls in my 5th-grade class who are still reading THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB and this new series is a little more timely.

It is the story of two sisters, Flora and Ruby, who lose their parents one night in a terrible car crash. Their grandmother picks up the pieces of their lives and they move to Camden Falls to live with her. Their grandmother owns a sewing shop and the girls help her out. There they meet two other girls -- Olivia, who lives next door and whose grandmother is co-owner of the shop, and Nikki, who is poor and lives on the wrong side of town.

Flora, Olivia, and Nikki are all in sixth grade and have the same teacher, and Ruby will be in fourth grade.

The author has made a simple story very contemporary by including many social issues that kids need to face each day. There is a family contending with Alzheimers Disease and another with downsizing. Flora is faced with trying to know who she is and who her parents were, there is a lady who has been in a concentration camp, another family who has a teen with Down Syndrome, and poverty. It is an intelligent and not watered down story.

I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series and introducing them to my class in the fall.

Reviewed by: Marta Morrison

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I love it!

This story is a little sad I thought. Because Flora and Rubys parents die. But after a little while I forgot about the whole sad part. And it turned out fun and happy! Well I have read the second book too. And theres a question at the end of book one that doesnt get answered unless... you read book two. This story is about two young girls who are having the best life they can without their parents. You'll love this book! Just one suggestion...... if you lovvvve it read the whole series! :-D

Flora and Ruby do not want to move to Camden Falls. But they don't really have a choice -- their parents are dead and their grandmother, Min, is taking them in. It's strange to be in a new place. But luckily, it's a very welcoming place.

Min runs a sewing store, Needle & Thread, at the heart of Main Street in Camden Falls. There, Flora and Ruby become friends with Olivia, who likes to organize things, and Nikki, who lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Even if Flora and Ruby never expected it to, Camden Falls becomes their home . . . and its stories become a part of their stories.

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