Holly Jolly Summer

April 1, 2018

Gr 7 Up-The summer tourist season is bustling in the stifling hot town of Christmas, KY, as 15-year-old Darby causes a very public disaster at the annual Snow Globe unveiling. Her single father, the town's mayor, encourages her to get a job and be a regular kid, replacing her unofficial position in his office with Marianne, an attractive city-girl type sent by the governor's office to help Christmas become an even greater tourist destination. Darby goes to work at Holly Jolly Land, a local amusement park full of promise, but in need of a little tender love and care. Despite being the most junior member of the maintenance crew and her reputation, Darby gets to know the owner, Nick, a Vietnam vet, and gains a sense of belonging. Her new supervisor turns out to be Calvin, a cute boy from the not-so-distant past, who causes her crush on Roy, the class heartbreaker, to fizzle. Stewart's debut is full of holiday flavor and humor, but also predictability. The sweet young adult romance would make for a light beach read. VERDICT An additional purchase for large collections where romance is popular.-Laura Jones, Argos Community Schools, IN

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2018
Fifteen-year-old Darby Peacher falls in and out of love, publicly humiliates herself, and saves an amusement park, all during one summer in a small Kentucky town. Daughter of the mayor of booming tourist destination Christmas, Kentucky, Darby spends her time texting, watching Andy Griffith Show reruns, obsessing over a boy, and acting as first daughter. She has a peculiar penchant for fruity expressions like "Holy kiwis!" and "What the kumquat was happening?" Darby is jealous of a political adviser who she believes is undermining her close relationship with her father. Following an embarrassing public spectacle, the adviser convinces her father that Darby should keep a low public profile, and he encourages her to get a summer job. Employed as a janitor at an aging amusement park called Holly Jolly Land, Darby must work with a former boyfriend and ends up leading a crusade to block the sale of the park to a mall developer. Setting the story in a town called Christmas gives debut author Stewart license to create a litany of cringe-inducing cutesy names like the Reindeer Games Midway and Christmas Carol-sel, which quickly become tiresome. Darby is white, and there is a lot of diversity in the secondary characters (the town is described as being among the most diverse in the state).Readers with a taste for innocuous fluff will not find this lighthearted, plot-driven, coming-of-age novel tedious. (Fiction. 12-16)

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April 1, 2018
Grades 7-10 The mayor's only kid, 15-year-old Darby, is best known as the First Daughter of Christmas, a rural western Kentucky tourist trap known for its holiday-themed . . . well, everything. But when her canoodling with a crush quite literally crashes the annual snow globe unveiling, Darby suddenly finds herself forced out of her usual position helping her dad and instead stuck on cleanup duty at the rundown amusement park, Holly Jolly Land. Between a commercial development project threatening the town's quaint charms, a new woman in town gunning for her dad, and a brewing love-hate relationship with a new coworker, Darby has plenty on her plate. Though the story arc and love triangle will feel familiar to many readers, it's the setting that shines in this well-paced debut. Christmas calls to mind Gilmore Girls' Stars Hollow with its range of cantankerous to surprisingly handsome denizens. Darby's penchant for faux cursing and the light romance make this a good crossover title for junior-high collections. A sweet country-tinged romance for Christmas fanatics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
After mayor's daughter Darby causes a disaster at the July snow-globe unveiling in Christmas, Kentucky, she's forced into a cleaning job at Holly Jolly Land amusement park. As Darby considers what it will take to keep her small town's character authentic in the face of big-time developers, she digs more deeply into her own character and considers a new love interest. Christmassy sweetness abounds in this feel-good summer rom-com.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)