When the Butterflies Came

Gr 4–7—Her beloved Granny's death leaves 12-year-old Tara with a trail of cryptic letters, clues, and keys having something to do with the unusual butterflies appearing in her family's run-down Louisiana mansion. So begins a choppy, too-big-too-be-true adventure ultimately encompassing the child's mother's nervous breakdown, her annoyingly clueless and self-centered dyed-blue-haired older sister, a British butler who arrives to do their bidding, a secret laboratory, and a blow-out finale on an exotic South Sea island…with a token cute boy. Despite the compelling central drama and many excellent descriptive passages, inconsistencies and unbelievable coincidences vie with stop-and-start action to frustrate readers, whose journey toward solving the mystery is kept in check by the meandering first-person narration of Tara, the "Pantene Princess." Readers would do better to stick with Jennifer Allison's "Gilda Joyce" books (Penguin).—Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC