The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

But not to worry….Callie, the witty and sincere narrator, is “smart as a tree full of owls” and won’t be denied her dreams of being a veterinarian or anything else she puts her mind to. In fact, of all Callie’s daily trials, the hardest to stomach is the injustice of being treated as a “half citizen” just because she’s a girl. 'Thirteen-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate of turn-of-the-20th-century Texas-introduced in the 2010 Newbery Honor–winning The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate-is more focused than ever on unlocking the secrets of the natural world.īut Callie Vee has her hands full with her tender brother Travis, who never met a wild animal he didn’t want to adopt (including a possibly diseased armadillo), and her ever exasperated mother, who wishes her one daughter among six sons would master the domestic arts instead of fixating on her Scientific Notebook and Charles Darwin (the source of the chapter-opening excerpts).

Hooray science learning!)Ī nice, if not critical addition, to the further adventures of Calpurnia. There are still some simple explanations of science experiments, completely with illustrations and diagrams, for young readers to try and replicate. This is not always the case in books, where characters are sometimes interchangeable. One thing I noticed in this book which I hadn't before was that Kelly gave each of the Tate brothers a distinct personality and they were very easy to tell apart.

There are a few smaller plots but those are the two biggest ones. Another involves a hurricane that hits the city of Galveston, leading to a cousin moving in with the Tates. One involves Travis, Calpurnia's animal-mad little brother who is determined to make every wild animal a pet. In this book, there is less of that and more actual plot lines.

Evolution was nigh perfection, and the joy I got from the story was watching Calpurnia discover the natural world. I didn't love this as much as the first book, which isn't terribly surprising. I bought it from BN as soon as it came out, but then it languished on my shelf a few a months as I got some other books out of the way. I loved and adored The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and was super excited to see that Kelly had written a second one.

The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly