EARLY CHAPTER BOOK REVIEW: Aven Green Music Machine by Dusti Bowling
REVIEW
Aven Green decides to enter the school talent show. She wants to play an instrument and expects to be an expert quite quickly. When the reality of learning to play a keyboard turns out to be quite different, Aven's confidence starts to drop. Things get even worse after a friend hurts her feelings by calling her music "bad noise". After trying a number of other instruments, Aven throws in the towel and quits. In an effort to encourage her not to give up, her parents take her on a road trip to see a musician perform on a guitar. The musician, like her, has no arms. Thanks to a talk with the musician and a gift from her grandmother, Aven finds the courage to perform at the talent show after all. I do love Aven Green. Not only does she make me laugh with some of her comments, but one has to admire her confidence, even if it crosses into overconfidence sometimes. I also loved how Aven's parents and grandmother worked to help Aven see the value of persistence and hard work. And I'm always a fan of a good teacher. I think one of the things that the Aven books do well (both the early chapter books and middle grade novels) is show Aven as a pretty normal kid, who just happens to have no arms. She's learned to do a lot of things differently than most people, but she's living her life and trying a lot of different activities. A delightful read for readers ready to move on to chapter books that has a delightful main character, good themes, and lots of humorous moments.
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