Chirp by Kate Messner

Yesterday I finished reading Chirp by Kate Messner. This realistic fiction novel with a bit of mystery is about Mia, a girl who moves back to Vermont from Boston with her parents the summer after seventh grade. While she's excited to see her grandmother, Gram, and help out with the cricket farm, she's also recovering from a broken arm she got falling off the balance beam at gymnastics and trying to forgot a secret that she left behind. When Gram mentions that her cricket farm is being sabotaged, Mia's mom believes it's because her thinking is impaired from the stroke she had months ago, but Mia wonders if there's more to it. Although she's initially reluctant to go to two day camps, Launch Camp and Warrior Camp, she befriends Clover and Anna. Soon, Mia confides in the other two girls about the issues at Gram's cricket farm and they decide to investigate to find out who is responsible for the sabotage before it's too late to save the farm with the project they're working on at Launch Camp. As the summer flies by, Mia continues holding on to her secret and has to find the courage to confront what happened to her.

I was initially excited to start reading this book because Mia was a gymnast like I was in school, so I was a little surprised when this book wasn't about her returning to gymnastics after an injury. It turned out that she had a really good reason for not wanting to go back, but I was still a little disappointed by the end. With that said, I loved the mystery of the cricket farm being sabotaged and desperately wanted the criminal to be found so that Gram didn't have to sell it. It was sweet how Clover and Anna wanted to help Mia with her project and their friendship was one of my favorite parts of the book. I also really enjoyed how one of the themes was the empowerment of girls and women and thought the story handled the topic of sexual harassment well. It reminded me a little of Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee, which I read last year. Because the book is relatively short, it was quite fast-paced, which I liked. With timely themes and topics, Chirp is a superb choice for girls, especially ones who might be coping with sexual harassment because it shows that they're not alone.