The Secret Order Of The Gumm Street Girls

Description

Franny longs for adventure but can't even do a cartwheel. Pru can do a cartwheel but prefers hiding under her quilt making up safety tips. Cat has no use for safety tips but supposedly has ESP. And Ivy has had a seven-year string of bad luck-a Jinx that's about to get a whole lot worse. The four are thrown together when a pair of mysterious ruby red slippers turn up, along with the fashionably mad Cha-Cha Staccato, who bears a frightening resemblance to a certain wicked witch. . . . As hilarious as it is original, The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls is an unforgettable take on girlhood, piano recitals, The Wizard of Oz, and the dependable everyday magic of true friendship.

Elise Primavera has, like Ivy, suffered her fair share of jinxes in life and has found it helpful, like Cat, to consult the I Ching before making any important decisions. She often feels, like Pru, that the safest place in this danger-filled world is under a quilt with a good book. As Franny dreams of doing, she has made her mark in the world-but as a writer and illustrator of children's books and not as an explorer in the mold of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Among her many books are the national bestselling Auntie Claus and its sequel. This is her first novel, but it won't be her last, because like Hieronymus Gumm, she always likes to have the last word and is hard at work on another book about the Gumm Street Girls.

"A delightful tale of friendship and adventure. Primavera's illustrations are small artistic gems." -- School Library Journal "Primavera is at her best." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)