On the flip side, there are definitely positive things going on here like personality responsibility, taking care of family members, being a good friend, being kind to animals, etc.It seems that the law of diminishing returns is at work with the series. Evan does tell Jessie that their grandmother isn't just "pretending" to forget things, and Maxwell's mother describes him as thinking about things in a "different" way from others, but young readers will not really have solid explanations for these characters unless they are reading this book with an adult caregiver who will express what is going on a little better.As with the previous book, I'm not a super huge fan that violence is used by the male characters as a way to deal with problems. It's clear to the adult reader that the children's grandmother has Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia, that their new friend Maxwell is on the autism spectrum, and it's possible that Jessie herself has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the author never bothers to explain any of those with the correct terminology. However, this book doesn't have any definitions, which I feel made it less unique and certainly less informative.
The first two books began each chapter with a definition of an economic and a legal term, respectively, which would then come into play in that chapter.
As with the first two books, the chapters alternate between Evan's perspective and Jessie's perspective, which is a nice way of helping kids understand a range of emotions and perhaps develop some empathy.
Jessie and Evan are going to visit their grandmother over the winter holidays but everything is all wrong - their grandmother is the hospital after accidentally burning part of her house down and the traditional New Year's Eve bell is missing from its post! Can the pair of siblings - along with the help of some new friends - help to right some of these wrongs?This is the third book in a series, although it feels a little less connected to the first two books whereas with the second book, you really kind of needed to read the first book to get it, this book could be picked up by a new reader without losing too much.
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