Olive of Groves by Katrina Nannestad and Lucia Masciullo
Olive of Groves is my choice-pick for middle readers this year! A delightful, hilarious read full of suspense and drama that will keep readers engaged from beginning to end.
As the newest arrival at Mrs Groves’ Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals and Circus Performers, Olive finds herself fast-talking her way into admission at the school with outlandish claims to talents she doesn’t possess. The headmistress, Mrs Groves, is terrified of ‘ordinary little girls’ and puts Olive on probation to prove that she has the right ‘misfit characteristics’ to be a student there.
Olive becomes quickly endeared towards a group of talking rats that share her bedroom and who have the most peculiar proclivities, but no more than other students in the school who are just as bizarre. Olive must contend with live human cannonballs propelled through walls, a pyrotechnic maniac that sets fire to everything and a compulsive butter-smearer who likes to grease all surfaces around the school. Olive’s biggest challenge is the school bully, Pig McKenzie, who is intent on seeing her expelled.
Read on to discover how Olive earns her place in this school of misfits, takes on the bully and rescues a friend from a terrible fate.