{My Thoughts} – Larissa is your average twelve year-old girl. She has a mother and a father and soon is going to become a big sister. However, she also lives in an antique shop that is very strange and she is getting off phone calls from dead phones with no connection.

A year ago she almost drowned, she doesn’t recall much of the situation or what had happened during that time period but she does know that she came awfully close to death. She also knows that her aunt Gwen had tragically died in a similar manner.

Larissa starts getting really strange phone calls that change her whole life. A girl on the other end of the phone tells her to find the fireflies, trust the fireflies. She does what the voice says even though she is scared out of her mind.

Her family has secrets that have been buried and the fireflies help her to learn what those secrets are. They help her to put together the puzzle that can help her make things right that had been done wrong in the past. They help to show her how to save her family.

This book is incredibly well written. It transitions so nicely that it is flawless on all accounts. If you want to learn more about Larissa and her family, how she nearly died and how her aunt Gwen had died, how she saves her family in the end and makes things right, you should get this book. It isn’t what I would call ordinary by any means, but it is a wonderful read and you will fly through the pages just like I did. Larissa is a very lovable character. ( )

Larissa Renaud doesn't live in a regular house. As she tells it,

"My parents moved us into the Bayou Bridge Antique Store—a fact I do not brag about. It's embarrassing to admit I share the same space as musty, mothball-smelly furniture, dusty books, and teacups that dead people once drank from."

Sometimes she wishes they had never come back here from Baton Rouge, but her family has a long history in the bayou town, much of it is tragic.

When Larissa receives a mysterious call on a broken antique phone, she's got a real mystery on her hands.

"Trust the fireflies,"

the ghostly girl tells her, setting Larissa on a strange and eerie path of discovery. Can Larissa right the wrongs of the past to save her family's future?

Though it highlights rural poverty, bullying, and new sibling issues, The Time of the Fireflies is at heart, a ghost story with a remarkably likable and resourceful protagonist.

To avoid giving away too much, I'll merely mention that readers may see some similarities to Rebecca Stead's Newbery Medal-winning, When You Reach Me. The spunky Larissa and author Kimberly Griffiths Little will draw you into the rich world of the Louisiana bayou until you too, are carried away by the fireflies.

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