I love that I can go back and read a review of a prequel. Sometimes it gets my juices flowing. I hate that I was able to read four novels while on vacation, but was too busy to write and had no wi-fi to post anyway. Enforced vacation? I love to read. Writing is something I’m still wondering about.
Scumble is a companion novel to Savvy . I call it a companion novel rather than a sequel because they can stand alone. This book occurs quite a few years after the first and while several of the first book’s characters appear in this one, it is not their story. Mibs, the heroine of Savvy is an adult and is only in the background while her younger siblings, Samson and Gypsy, play minor supporting characters.
Savvy was a coming of age novel about a girl and Scumble is a coming of age novel about a boy. I would expect more girls read the first, but I think we might be able to pick up some boys with the second… I wonder if boys would go back to read the original… Either way, I see 5th through 8th graders reading this. I’m going to call it contemporary realistic fantasy. This could easily be any child trying to fit in in today’s world. The only difference is a little uncontrollable superpower.
A Savvy is an extraordinary talent inherited on your thirteenth birthday. To Scumble your Savvy is to control it in such a way that it doesn’t draw attention from the savvy-less locals. Or, in Ledger Kale’s case, doesn’t destroy every working machine in his vicinity. His first goal was to drive with his family from Indiana to Wyoming without their car falling apart into little bitty pieces.
The family is taking their chances with a savvy-newbie in the vehicle because they are going to a family wedding at Ledge’s Uncle Autry’s Ranch. It will be a “savvy” family reunion with all the cousins. Uncle Autry’s savvy draws insects, hence a “bug” ranch. His twin daughters, Marisol and Mesquite, inherited their savvys when they were only five and so they have already perfected their skills. One can levitate objects up and down and the other can levitate objects side to side. Working together, they can distribute wedding cake to all of the guests!
There is another guest actually living on the ranch. Mib’s older brother, Rocket, whose savvy can generate enormous amounts of electricity, has banned himself to the ranch because it is safer than home where he accidently hurt a close friend with his powers. After Ledge accidently brings down one of Uncle Autry’s barns, the Kale family decides that perhaps Ledge should stay at the ranch for the summer until he can learn to scumble his savvy better as well.
It’s one thing to hide at a ranch while you attempt to control your overwhelming super talents. It’s another thing entirely to have a super sleuth reporter sticking her nose where it isn’t wanted. Sarah Jane runs her own little newspaper in the town of Sundance and she knows there’s something special about the ranch and the people living on it. She knows just enough to be able to bribe Ledge into telling and showing her everything. She’s a VERY persuasive girl and her father seems to own or control everything in town. And he has eyes on Uncle Autry’s ranch…
I enjoyed Savvy, but Scumble is even better!
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