Contemporary Christian music singer-songwriter Natalie Grant tackles girl power and sister love in A Dolphin Wish, the second book in the Glimmer Girls series published by Zonderkidz.
Twin sisters Mia and Maddie and younger sibling Lulu are dedicated young detectives who accidentally discovered that someone was letting the animals at Captain Swashbuckler’s Adventure Park out, a terrible news for the park management and biologists who are helping these animals become strong before they are released back to the wild.
The story unfolded in San Diego where the girls’ mother, Gloria Glimmer, is having a concert. Gloria, who is the book version of Grant, is a famous singer who travels a lot for her career. In San Diego, the Glimmer family along with their nanny, the smart and upbeat Miss Julia explored the adventure park, spent quality family time, and learned more amazing facts about marine life.
Who is responsible for all the troubles happening in the park?
How did the sister work together?
Did they break any rules?
These are the questions answered using faith-based lessons and dialogues mostly exchanged between the girls and their parents, Gloria and Jack.
Grant was careful in emphasizing lessons on honesty, humility, and sibling love in a book that could have easily promote the idea of “it’s okay to break rules because you’re curious and it’s all in the spirit of fun and adventure”.
I like that this book highlighted the roles of the parents in guiding their children to make right decisions and making themselves always available whenever the children want to talk about certain issues or discuss sensitive matters.
Clearly, the characters of this series is based on Grant’s personal life. She has twin girls and a younger daughter in real life, who are being portrayed as Mia, Maddie, and Lulu in the books.
While some people believe that parental involvement takes out the fun in any activity, Grant proves it is not the case in this book. Gloria and Jack are cool and adventurous just like their children. They are always open to listen to their children’s concerns, play with them like their close friends, and possess a refreshing zest for life. But they know where to set the limit and know when to tell their children that it’s time to listen to Mom and Dad.
Apart from learning good moral values, A Dolphin Wish is also rich with marine knowledge as the girls went around an adventure park with dolphins, seals, fish, and penguins as residents and visitors. Take note of Miss Julia and her interesting trivia!
For girls between the ages of nine and 12, this is a good book to begin your adventure in becoming a detective or an investigator or… a journalist!
I’ll save this one for my Antoinette to read.
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