My One Hundred Adventures

My 100 Adventures is the best book I have ever read. I am 9 years old. It is very enjoyable. I think it is very funny. It is a great book for all ages. Polly Horvath's other books are excellent. I would absolutely give it 5 stars. I think everybody should read it. I am sure that if you read it you will love it. After reading it, Polly Horvath is my favorite author.

Jane lives in a house by the sea with her mother and three younger siblings all year long, despite the fact that most people leave after the summer ends. She loves their house, and loves the life they have, but still she has grown restless. What she craves is adventure, and the summer of her twelfth year, adventure is what she gets. This is a fun book that is easy to read, comfortable, and engages the imagination. There are no themes that are too adult for young readers, so kids can enjoy going along for the ride and parents can be comfortable letting them. I recommend this book. Reviewed by Kim Schults

What a lovely book. I became a Polly Horvath fan years ago with The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle. This new book has a similar Horvathian episodic style, exquisite prose, and her unique dry understated wit. Set in a Massachusetts coastal town, 12 year-old Jane lives with her poet mother and younger siblings on the beach. In true Horvath fashion, eccentric characters populate the novel as do eccentric experiences -- delivering Bibles by balloon, babysitting issues, and other intimate adventures. There are a number of connecting threads (family, fathers, friendship, and more) moving through the story, all nicely and satisfyingly resolved for our heroine Jane by the end. Horvath always has a dry, deadpan humorous style that I've always loved. For example, in this book, Jane's poet-mother is evidently doing what she can to find and put food on the table and there is mention of a large bag of rice. Toward the end of the book Jane, her mother, and a friend are mourning the death of another character: We don't feel much like having a barbecue now. We sit around and eat a little rice. (And again a few paragraphs later when someone stops by to discuss the funeral.) "Of course we will be there. We will all be there," says my mother and then offers Mrs. Merriweather a little rice, but she cannot stay. She has other arrangements to make. A book that lingers long after you are done with it. Completely charming.

My One Hundred Adventures is a cross between Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide and Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here. Surprises await in every chapter, making the reader want to quickly turn to the next page. By the same token, Horvath is so in-tune with her 12-year-old protagonist and the daily music of her summer days in a small Massachusetts beach town, that I found I also wanted to stop and read passages over and over again. Jane is ready for adventure. She has spent all her years with her three younger siblings and her single mom in a wonderfully cozy house by the sea, but she is aching for something more. She's ready to leap into the "know-not-what" this summer. And leap she does with a first time solo ride in a hot-air balloon, a trip to the fair with her possible father, an almost road trip to California with an elderly neighbor, and a new friendship with Nellie, preacher and hopeful healer. Just by summoning a little positive energy and opening her front door, Jane's dreams for 100 adventures begin to come true. For additional comments about this novel and other reviews, please visit my site.