ABAW: 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson, HarperCollins e-books 2011 edition (free Kindle version)

This book begins with Ginny Blackstone, a teenage girl in New York setting off for a trip to London. She’s not sure why she’s going to London, and her parents don’t really want her to go, but a letter from her recently deceased aunt has told her to go to London, so she does. She goes along with the instructions thinking that she’ll figure out why her aunt suddenly left New York — and Ginny — a few years back. Her aunt’s instructions come in the form of thirteen fancy little numbered blue envelopes that Ginny is to open one at a time, and only after she’s completed the task in the previous envelope. The instructions are just specific enough to get Ginny to be active, but just vague enough to keep Ginny wondering, and to empower her to make some brave choices and do some things she might not otherwise do. Ginny travels and meets interesting characters, including a funny, creative, charming boy who doesn’t seem too bothered that Ginny’s lurching-along-through-Europe seems a little crazy. Ginny finds some answers about her aunt, but she learns more about herself: she is more powerful and resourceful than she realized, life can be both haphazard and purposeful, most people are nice (sometimes too nice, sometimes nice even if they’re weird), and grief is complex and can jump out at you unexpectedly.

Maureen Johnson gives us a book that is funny and quirky in a realistic way, showing us that sometimes life is puzzling but we can keep moving forward, and sometimes bad stuff happens, but not all the time, and mostly we figure out how to deal with it.

A sequel called The Last Little Blue Envelope was released April 26. I look forward to finding out what’s in that thirteenth envelope.