Review - Poppy Haviland and the Secret of the Lively Widow by Michael Barra and Annabel Lively Barra

Poppy Haviland and the Secret of the Lively Widow by Michael Barra and Annabel Lively Barra

Published 28th March 2019 by Matador

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 20/50

I was gifted a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Poppy Haviland & The Secret of the Lively Widow is the first book in a series featuring twelve-year-old aspiring actress Poppy Petunia Haviland and her adventuresome friends. Simply being twelve years old is tough enough, but try being twelve AND the daughter of the world’s most famous movie star. Yeah... exactly. 

In The Secret of the Lively Widow, Poppy’s family relocate to a small town where the appearance of superstar Holly Haviland takes the community by storm. Even when Poppy discovers a treasure map carefully tucked within their historic lodgings, she can’t seem to capture anyone’s attention for very long. She recruits her best friend, Annie Kim, and her strange new neighbour Rick Reyes (a rapper and inventor), to explore the history of the map and of their new community. 

The trio learns that the town that they are living in was a key terminal on the Underground Railroad – the illegal passageway to freedom that played a major role in the termination of slavery in America – and that Poppy’s family played an important role in that history. Will their efforts result in the discovery of a long-rumoured historical treasure, or will someone else get to it first?

My Thoughts

I do enjoy a middle grade story every once in a while so when the publisher offered to send me a copy of this one in exchange for review I happily accepted. I found this story really enjoyable and I think it will be loved by lots of young readers. In this story we follow Poppy, our young main character and daughter to a movie star. She feels like shes always living in her mother's shadow and shes determined to make a name for herself. The family relocate out of the city to a family farm and from there Poppy learns about her family history and some hidden secrets. I find this sort of mystery and adventure story line is quite common amongst middle grade stories but it is one that I really enjoy. I think this one was done quite well, we jumped straight into the story with little faff and follow it on from there. This was a super quick read, I managed to read most of it in one evening. The writing was simple and easy to read but I wouldn't say it was necessarily childlike. There was enough to it to appeal to older readers and well as being able to be enjoyed by younger readers. There was also some humour scattered throughout the story which I enjoyed. I also liked the characters. Being a middle grade means that our main characters are younger and I often struggle to connect with these characters due to their age, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading about them. I felt a bit sorry for Poppy, constantly having to live in the shadow of her mother but she was very determined to make a name for herself in her own way. I both Poppy and our two side characters were super fun however, they were quite reckless and did some things that I wouldn't want to encourage other young readers too do. I liked that there were adults throughout this book and they did support our young characters to some extent however, I there were times when they did things that I didn't agree with, for example laughing at Poppy when she got her glasses. Overall I quite enjoyed this one. It was a super fun middle grade adventure story which was super quick and easy to read. I would definitely recommend picking it up either for yourself or for any younger readers in your lives. Overall Rating