Review Detail

Abbey Hayes is the heroine of her very own series by Anne Mazer. Abbey has curly red hair, collects calendars which is a quirky hobby, and is starting fifth grade. Her family is super talented. Older twins Isabel and Eva are sports stars, younger brother Alex is a genius, while Abbey’s mom is a lawyer and her dad owns his own website business. In contrast, Abbey feels small and insignificant. In the introductory book of the series, Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining, Abbey wishes to be like anyone else in her family. Then Abbey’s fifth-grade teacher announces that this year their grade will have a special creative writing workshop every week. As part of this special writing class, Abbey receives a notebook in which she can write whatever she wants. You might know this as “Plan B” writing—which is what students can do when they are finished with assigned writing. Soon after Abbey receives that notebook, she gets so caught up with writing in it that her teacher has to reprimand her: “Put the notebook away. We’re going to begin our math quiz.” My writing club students would know how she feels—and so do I. Yet Abbey continues to believe that she needs to become a sports star for her to be a “super member” of the Hayes family and so she diets, trains, and works out. I’m not sure why she latches specifically onto sports, but ultimately Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining is a light-hearted story about a girl who struggles to find her talent in all the wrong places. The rest of the series, which portrays Abbey continuing to grow as a writer while dealing with all of life’s various issues, is equally fun.