I was so excited to see a new book by Kate Messner! Chirp is about a girl named Mia who is excited to move back to Vermont to be closer to her grandmother. Upon arriving, her parents convince her to participate in a summer Launch Camp (for entrepreneurs) and a Warrior Camp. Mia meets new friends in the Launch Camp and decides to use it to help her grandma with the cricket farm that she owns. However, the Warrior Camp is more of a challenge for Mia because of a bad gymnastics fall she had recently.

Grandma thinks someone may be sabotaging her cricket farm so Mia and friends start investigating. Along the way, we also learn that there is more to the story of Mia's gymnastics fall. After hearing several important girls/women in her life tell #metoo stories, can Mia find the courage to tell the secret that ultimately ended her love of gymnastics?

Chirp is a well-written book with good character development. I love how the characters in this book are working in a maker space to solve real problems. I enjoyed learning about crickets, cricket farms, and the human consumption of crickets. But most importantly, I think the author did a great job of introducing the #metoo movement in an age-appropriate, sensitive way. This is an important book that should be in every library.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children's Books for an advanced copy of this book.

The characters in this book were very likeable & their experiences were revealed in a beautiful way. The pacing was spot on and everything felt like it came at the right moment. The ideas for the business were relevant for the times and inspiring to readers. The mother and grandmother addressing the experience with the gymnastics couch was eloquent and supportive. The author’s note at the end was just as eloquent and supportive. An important and enjoyable book.

I received an electronic ARC from Bloomsbury Children's Books through NetGalley.
Messner creates characters that are relatable and share stories readers can relate to. Sadly, in this book we see a young girl (Mia) who gives up a sport she loved after a severe injury on the beam. As the story progresses, readers watch the real reason come to light. Mia's coach made some unwelcome contacts and uncomfortable touches that frightened her. She opted for silence as she didn't think anyone would believe her. Hence, the title - male crickets speak; females remain silent.
Through making new friends and observing how several generations of women have dealt with similar situations, she begins to get her bravery and boldness back. Again, Messner has presented a realistic picture that female readers will relate to if they've faced similar situations.
Before the story ends, Mia finds the courage to share with her mother and grandmother. Readers see her move through the normal phases involved and watch her conquer her fear of the beam and jumping into the water to reclaim herself.

When I saw that Kate Messner had a book on @netgalley, I had to request it. Kate is one of my all time favorite middle grade writers. In the book, Chirp, she once again knocks it out of the park and shows her flexibility of a writer. While at first I thought it would be a great read aloud for grade three, I quickly realized that the book is slightly too sophisticated for the average 8 year old. I would highly recommend this book to grade 4 and above. What I had originally thought was a book about a cricket farm, quickly turned into a young lady finding her voice. Having grown up in a time when women’s voices were not heard, this book is a shout out to women every where, but told through the voice of a young lady. Wonderful story! Highly recommend for grade 4 and above.

I am so grateful to have received an ARC of Chirp by Kate Messner from NetGalley. Kate Messner is one of the gurus of teaching ELA that I respect, follow, and incorporate her ideas into my lessons. Her summer writing camp for teachers encourages us as educators to explore our own writing and try new techniques.

Chirp is an amazing and touching story of Mia, who is struggling with secrets and hurt. Mia spends the summer in Vermont at her Gram’s cricket farm. She hopes to rest and snack her summer away, but soon changes directions as she joins Warrior Camp and Launch Camp. Launch Camp is similar to Shark Tank and Warrior Camp is a gymnastics camp. Mia loved gymnastics, until she suffered an injury to her arm, but also her mindset. At Warrior Camp, Mia makes friends and becomes detective when Gram’s cricket farm is suffering from surprising controversial events happening.

Launch Camp is an amazing opportunity for the girls to support the success of Gram’s cricket farm, as Gram is not ready to sell her dream and retire. The girls work together to create a sales pitch that will better serve the cricket farm and keep Gram doing what she loves. Mia takes on leadership roles and the team works together seamlessly, until...

Throughout the novel, the reader learns more about crickets and reasons we should try them as a protein source. I found it interesting that female crickets are silent and the males actually make the sounds we hear. Although, throughout the read, I wanted to tell the females to speak up just as Mia does.

Chirp should be included in every middle school classroom, as young people find their voice, make a difference, and overcome challenges with confidence once their voice is heard. I will definitely add Chirp to my 7th grade classroom. Chirp brings young people together standing up for one another, guiding as they find their voice, and overcoming obstacles to be the best self they can be!

Wow. This book is one that girls and boys need today. It was amazing. I loved seeing Mia gain her strength and confidence back from a physically and emotionally difficult situation while making friends and helping her grandma along the way.

An age-appropriate book about inappropriate behavior in the gymnastics world. Mia is fortunate to have caring adults and friends to help her deal with her problems.

Wow! So much going on in this book! Cool cricket science/farming and cooking (yes!), metoo movement, entrepreneurship, and a fun mystery too. The author ties everything together in such a clever way as well. Messner impresses me again and I’m sure will be a hit with my students.

Mia and her family are moving to Vermont to be closer to her grandmother. Gram isn't your typical old lady. In fact, she runs her own business - the business of bugs.

Gram's cricket farm has been struggling. One thing after another seems to be going wrong and Gram and Mia suspect foul play. Mia, aided by her new friends at Launch camp, come up with a plan to help. They create the Cricket Challenge where people are encouraged to try eating crickets and posting to social media. They create a new business plan to enter into the Junior Launch competition.

While Mia is making new friends and trying new things, she struggles with the fear that came with her gymnastics injury, as well as the secret that truly ended her interest in gymnastics.

This book is a great introduction to both women in entrepreneurship and the #metoo movement. Messner always does a wonderful job at bringing real world issues to her texts in a way that supports readers and starts conversation and this book continues that legacy.

With a move to Burlington VT area to be close to Gram who is a cultivating cricket farm, Mia finds herself making new friends at a local summer camps, but not gymnastics. Mia suffered a broken arm at her suburban Boston gymnastics school, and even though she has shelves of trophies and she is healed physically, emotionally she is not. #me too theme tucked in a middle grade plot. Highly readable mystery which offers a positive message about friendship, trust, and not being intimidated.

Loved this story and all the themes of addresses including unwanted attention from adults and how to handle that as a young girl, cricket farming and sustainable diets, engineering and robotics where the girls are the experts, and finding ways to deal with tough situations with the love and support of family and friends.

This is an important story! Read it together or at the same time as your tween and then discuss the super important topic and how Mia can be anybody. This book can open the door for some great discussions.

Kate Messner brings an important, heavy topic to readers woven together with great characters and a little mystery.

There was an issue with my e-arc where some of the sentences were missing, which made it a little difficult to read. Other than that I really enjoyed this book and will definitely recommend it.

This phenomenal MG is not only entertaining but moving as well. It presents an important and timely issue to young audiences in a sensitive and age-appropriate manner. Readers will love the insect recipes and the mystery. Teachers and parents will be able to use this book as a springboard for many meaningful conversations. Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children's Books for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Description
From acclaimed author Kate Messner comes the powerful story of a young girl with the courage to make her voice heard, set against the backdrop of a summertime mystery.

When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she's recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she'd rather forget.

Mia's change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram's thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago? Mia and her friends set out to investigate, but can they uncover the truth in time to save Gram's farm? And will that discovery empower Mia to confront the secret she's been hiding--and find the courage she never knew she had?

In a compelling story rich with friendship, science, and summer fun, a girl finds her voice while navigating the joys and challenges of growing up.

Kate Messner is passionately curious and writes books that encourage kids to wonder, too. Her titles include award-winning picture books like Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and How to Read a Story; novels like Capture the Flag, All the Answers, The Seventh Wish, and Breakout; the Fergus and Zeke easy reader series, and the Ranger in Time historical chapter book series. Kate lives on Lake Champlain with her family and is trying to summit all forty-six Adirondack High Peaks in between book deadlines.

There was a problem with the digital copy, but I soldiered through it. I'm not a huge one overly fond of folks jumping on the bandwagon of the #metoo thing. I also don't think it needs to be shoved in younger kids faces. I grew up in a different world than what we have today in terms of the social norms that are going around in all the social media that's killing the world as we know it. I didn't like that part of the book. It was, however, well written.

I was so excited to be able to read an advanced copy of Chirp and it lived up to all of my expectations. Kate Messner handled a very sensitive topic with grace and made it very approachable to young people. Kate Messner really has a talent for middle grade fiction.

Kate Messner is a master at writing for tweens because, just as kids don’t have a single identity, neither do the books she writes for them. She can write about a heavy, important topic without it feeling burdensome, because that isn’t the book’s only identity. Chirp is an incredibly relevant, sensitive, courageous book that takes on the complex topic of sexual abuse and harassment. I absolutely love the gentle and appropriate way that she handles this topic - with respect for her readers, and connecting them to the #MeToo stories they hear from adults. The main character, Mia, has just moved to Vermont, where her grandmother’s cricket farm is struggling. Grandma raises crickets for food - people food! - so there are a variety of examples throughout the book of how to eat crickets - roasted, ground into flour for baked goods, or included in candy, ice cream, and pizza! This is a highly fascinating topic, especially for kids, and its relevance to sustainability and eco-mindedness is a theme in the book, as Mia works for ways to help her grandma’s business expand and become more efficient. Mia and her new friends also try to solve the mystery of who is sabotaging the cricket farm, and why - the connections to Mia’s own personal battle are absolutely genius. Entrepreneurship, physical training, friendship, corporate sabotage, gymnastics, female empowerment, robotics, competition, social media, and family relationships all play important roles in Mia’s story of learning to find her voice and speak up! There are a lot of moving parts in this book, but I believe that is the point: we are not a single story, a single aspect of our identities. Humans, including kids, are so much more complex, and Kate deftly brings all of Mia’s identities together with compassion, humor, and perfect timing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury Children's Books, for sharing an advance copy of Chirp by Kate Messner with me. All opinions are my own. This book will be released in February 2020.

During the summer after 7th grade, Mia moves back to Vermont so her parents can help her grandma with her cricket farm (though Mia's mom believes her grandma should sell the business, so she can relax). Mia's mom makes her choose two summer camps to enroll in, one for her mind and one for her body. Mia chooses to go to Launch Camp and Warrior Camp. Between her camp sessions, Mia helps her grandma at the cricket farm and learns that things just don't seem to be going her grandma's way. They're having issues with temperature control, bugs in the feed, and more. Mia quickly realizes that someone is trying to sabotage her grandma's dream and makes it her project at Launch Camp to create a business plan and way to innovate and expand the cricket farm. Mia and her friends start to investigate the mysterious incidents occurring at the farm. Will their discoveries and friendship empower Mia to share the secrets she's been keeping?

I enjoyed this book for several reasons. To start, I love a mystery. This book has just enough of a mystery to pull you in. I became invested in the cricket farm and trying to figure out who was behind the sabotage. Additionally, I liked the message about empowerment and female entrepreneurs. I liked that the two camps that Mia chose might not be considered camps for girls, but both had multiple girls not only attending but excelling at what they were doing. The final thing I liked was Mia finding her voice and sharing with her mom about what happened to her at gymnastics. Mia knew something was wrong, but didn't believe that her voice would be heard or believed. I think it's incredibly important for young readers to know that if something is off or doesn't feel right to them, that they should share those feelings with a trusted adult. While I did enjoy this novel, my digital arc had several missing portions (random parts of sentences and paragraphs just weren't there) which did detract a little from my enjoyment as I wasn't getting the full picture and I had to infer several things.

Kate Messner does a masterful job of writing a main character who overcome certain challenges by connecting with other girls and women and finding strength by speaking up. In this #metoo book girls share experiences through building a business together. The mystery that needs solving along the way adds one more element of fun you the book.

Due to a truly horrible digital ARC, I stopped trying to read this one. I think it will be a good middle grades choice for those that like a come back story with heart and a little mystery.

I really liked this book and was able to read it in a few hours. The incorporation of the different camps and the cricket farm was pretty clever. I also think the fact that the #metoo movement was a part of the story was extremely important and well done. I rarely see middle grade books that discuss serious subjects like sexual harassment and this author did a great job of writing it into this story. The only two things I didn’t like in the book was the fact that a lot of the dialogue was a little too much set up and could feel heavy handed at times. Like there was too much tell and not show. The other issues was more with the formatting of the book (so it may be Netgalley fault and not a issue with the story). There were a lot of words and pages cut off so I needed to use context clues a lot to figure out certain words and what was going on. I still understood the story for the most part, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. Overall though, this was a fun, creative, and important story that I hope many middle schoolers and readers in general will love.