The Bookshop Girl

Book excerpt: Despite growing up in the bookstore she was abandoned in, eleven-year-old Property Jones cannot read...and she's been keeping that hidden for years. Little does Property know the skills she's developed in place of reading could save her adoptive family from a dastardly plot that's set to cheat them out of everything. You see, the Joneses have just won a contest for ownership of another bookstore, the Great Montgomery Book Emporium—and it's every booklover's dream! The pull of a lever calls forth rooms full of marvelous wonders―from the Room of Space Adventures with its rocket ship to the Room of Ocean Tales with its aquarium ceiling. But there is more to the Emporium than its thousands of books in extravagant displays. In fact, the previous owner, Mr. Montgomery, has not paid a very greedy man for a very expensive book. A book which the Joneses discover Mr. Montgomery damaged. While her family worries about losing the Emporium altogether, Property begins to notice strange things about this book. Things which can only be smelled or touched... Sylvia Bishop's fantastical middle grade mystery debut is an entertaining tale filled with whimsy, mechanical wonder, and memorably quirky characters.