"13 Little Blue Envelopes" is the name of a book written by a certain Miss Maureen Johnson. The story is simple. The Protagonist (main character) is Virginia (Ginny for short) a 17 year old "regular" American Teenager-who has never done anything "out of the ordinary", with her life. She considers herself near painfully average - however all of this changes. She is left with a letter from an aunt containing a set of instructions - basically telling her to get packing and first go to her aunt's place in New York. Upon reaching her destination she receives a package containing 13 Blue Envelopes- each containing a letter written by her Aunt Peg (Who happens to have died a while back)
[ Find a more detailed introduction here.]
Title: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Young Adult (fiction)
I picked out this particular book, purely based on the cover alone- knowing nothing else, but it turned out to be a good choice after all.
Ginny is now instructed via letter from her Aunt Peg to travel and see the places that her Aunt Peg had travelled through and seen a while back, with nothing but a large backpack as a companion.
The wonderful thing about this book, (and the thing which keeps me reading it over and over again sometimes) is the ability of the author to transport us (the readers) into this new place, with them. Although it's second hand information, at some points I've felt that I was travelling (first-hand) with Ginny- feeling bored; with her, annoyed; with her, shocked at herself; with her, angry; with her, exhausted; with her, understanding humour; with her and exploring with her.
The pace is beautiful. The mysteries that begin to unfold- is there more to this journey than just giving Ginny one last chance to come out of her shell and live like a crazy person or not?
The story takes us through Europe and made me want to travel the world. The way Ginny does - a little randomly but with assistance.
At the end of the book, I was starting to get a little disappointed before the last chapter, however the Last Chapter came to the rescue and the book proves to be whole on its own, but there's more.
6 years after the release of this book, Maureen Johnson has released it's sequel (The 13th little blue envelope) and I've been meaning to read it, if ever I get the opportunity to.
Unfortunately I haven't read any other books by Maureen Johnson - which I hope will change shortly.
Love
Jeff
Nice review
ReplyDelete