The Great Grain Elevator Incident by Kevin Miller is one of the top 2019 releases (in my humble opinion).

Milligan Creek is one of the best middle grade series out there. Seriously - it brightens up my mood like Harry Potter did back in my youth. This series is packed full of fun, small town vibes, amazing friendships and hilarity. It's the perfect series for those middle grade readers who want more than picture books but less than the big Harry Potter series (this book is under 200 pages!).

In the fourth edition of this Canadian series, Matt, Dean, Chad & Andrew get into more mischievous (surprise, surprise). When a big company wants to get rid of the Prairie's grain elevators, the boys step into action and end up helping the Mayor's election campaign! Will the boys get rid of the big baddies?

Briar's Positives:

1. This book is set in Saskatchewan! I don't typically see this beautiful province, so it's such a pleasant surprise!

2. I found this book enjoyable as an adult and I could totally see middle grade readers loving it too. The plot moves at a fast enough pace to keep everyone interested and it's full of comedy. I could easily see parents reading this to their kids or making this a book to read for a school project.

3. Friendship rules! The potential romance from the last book is discussed and "dealt with". The romance ended on a nice note and friendship soared. It makes me really happy to see middle grade books not focusing on the need to have a romance. That was one of the major cons I had back in the day. Every book I was forced to read for school focused on the importance of romance! This book makes it clear that friendship and loyalty should be in the forefront.

4. This book is seriously funny! It also has some funny tropes and jokes about small towns and since I'm from one, I could totally appreciate them! Percy the Pike, the sister town in Japan, salt on alpha bites, and the koi pond are just some of the funny jokes that had me giggling.

5. Realism. This book had a fairly realistic problem. Lots of big companies, like Fortitude, are coming into smaller towns and taking over! I loved seeing that in this book! I can relate.

6. We all have a Tucker, or famous person in the community, in our towns. They act like they are superstars JUST. LIKE. HIM. It's almost too relatable which made it way more hilarious than it should have been.


Negatives:

1. It ended! This book was just wild and it was sad that it had to end. I'm sure Kevin will fill up my shelf with a new book soon, but it's still sad to see it end. I tried not to binge it, but I did anyways! It was hard to stay away from this little gem.

2. You may need to read the previous books to understand everything that has happened previously. A little bit of the past is brought up, but not much. A reader could easily jump into this series from book four and be fine, but I think it'd be way more fun to know the shenanigans the kids got into during the previous books.

Overall, this book is an absolute gem as expected! I absolutely loved this book and I'm so happy I was able to jump back into this world. It's one of my guilty pleasures that brings a big smile to my face and makes my days brighter!

Five out of five stars!

Thank you to the wonderful Kevin Miller for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )