Julie Bourbeau

The Wednesdays is a debut middle grade fantasy by Julie Bourbeau that has a similar magic and danger as JM Barrie's Peter Pan. Max lives with family in a small village near Mount Tibidabo that is besieged by bad luck every Wednesday.

To avoid the wednesdays, the creatures believed to be the source of the bad luck, the village shuts its doors on Wednesdays. People stay in doors unless it's an absolute emergency. Max, though, on his birthday, decides he's had enough of being stuck in doors, and goes out in search of the wednesdays.

Just as Wendy's wish to meet Peter ends up being a whole lot more trouble than she had expected, Max's successful encounter with the wednesdays leaves him cursed by his own personal bad luck. A boy who can bring bad luck on any day of the week quickly becomes the town pariah.

Bourbeau keeps the problem at hand focused on Max, his bad luck and the town's on-going history with the wednesdays. By avoiding extraneous details, The Wednesdays is a magical, believable and compelling read.… (meer)

Ever had a case of the Monday's? Well, Julie Bourbeau explores that theme with a slight twist. In The Wednesdays, Max's village is stuck with a huge case of the Wednesdays - on Wednesday of course! Anything and everything goes wrong one day of the week... so in order to avoid those things happening the entire town shuts down and everyone hides. After all, you don't want to let a Wednesday into your house!

So what happens when Max peeks out of the window and lets a Wednesday in? Well.. that's the story, isn't it?

I was completely delighted by this middle-grade adventure. It had mystery, fantastic secondary characters, and riddles galore. I don't often pick up middle-grade level books, but when I do I make sure that they have something unique about them, and The Wednesdays did not disappoint on that level. It was charming, full of fun, and definitely something I'll be recommending to my nieces and nephews to read.

For you parents out there: this is a great book filled with a lot of action and adventure. I could not find anything to object to in the story for first graders on, but there is a bit of scary stuff toward the end of the book. I'd recommend a read-through first if that worries you. And even though the book seems long, I flew through it in just a few hours. Very easy to check out first.… (meer)