Review: The Third Mushroom

The Third Mushroom by Jennifer L. Holm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Third Mushroom is an excellent sequel to The Fourteenth Goldfish, but it also works as a standalone book. I love Jennifer Holm's novels because they tackle important topics while still being funny and appropriate for young readers. As an elementary librarian, I often worry about putting books out in the library that have profane language in them because I work in a very conservative community.

This story is all about friendship in its many different forms: the current best friend, the old best friend, a pet, and a family member that becomes a friend. I completely agree with the main character Ellie; someone needs to create a "friendmance" category of books "because friendship is as important as love" (p. 212*). I love that Ellie learns that failure is normal and acceptable if you learn from it. In our "everyone gets a trophy" society, students seem to be destroyed by failure. When they fail, they want to find someone else to blame instead of seeing the chance to learn from their mistakes.

I will definitely be recommending this heartfelt story to all of my third through fifth-grade students. I can't wait to get it in our school library.

*Quoted from an ARC

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