Trillium Sisters 1: The Triplets Get Charmed

by Laura Brown, Elly Kramer, Sarah Mensinga (Illustrator)

Overview

Three sisters discover that they and their pets have superpowers they can use to protect the world around them in the first book in a fantastical new chapter book series about family, friendship, and environmental responsibility perfect for fans of Mia Mayhem and The Wish Fairy.

Nothing can stop this triple team!

Eight-year-old triplets Emmy, Clare, and Giselle are excited to celebrate Founding Day, the day their dad found them and they became a family. The girls want this year's celebration to be extra special. And Dad has a big sur¬prise—trillium petal charms that he found with the girls.

But when the girls' little brother, Zee, slips into the river while helping them plan a special surprise, something magical happens: The charms are drawn together, forming a glowing flower, and the girls suddenly have super¬powers! Channeling their new abilities, they work together to try to save Zee, but will they be able to figure out how to help in time?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645950141
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	06/01/2021
Series:	Trillium Sisters
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.21(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.54(d)
Age Range:	7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Laura Brown is an early childhood expert, collaborates with businesses and organizations to create high quality educational media properties and products. She has written curricula and scripts and served as Content Expert and Research Director for series produced by Nick Jr., Disney Junior, Amazon Kids, DreamWorks Animation Television, PBS Kids, Universal Kids, and many others. A mother of three, she lives in Tenafly, NJ, but in another life, she would happily live in a tree house in the forest.

Elly Kramer is currently the VP of Production & Development at Imagine Entertainment in their Kids and Family division and has created and led the development of numerous award-winning and highly-rated TV shows, online games, and innovative apps. As VP of Production and Development with Nickelodeon, she led the development of long and short-form content. She has also produced and developed over thirty-five shorts. Elly is a frequent speaker at film festivals and industry events. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2021

Gr 1–3—Eight-year-old triplets Emmy, Clare, and Giselle are planning a surprise to celebrate the day their veterinarian father found them in the woods and made them a family. Their dad has a special "Founding Day" gift, too: a charm for each of them in the shape of a trillium flower petal, found alongside them (and their animal companions) when they were babies. When their little brother Zee tries to help with the surprise and ends up in serious danger, the charms magically combine, giving each girl a superpower. Once Zee is safely rescued, the sisters' newly discovered powers wear off, leaving them and readers with more questions than answers—ostensibly to be explored in future installments. The story is plot driven and, aside from Zee's rescue, largely unresolved. Character development is wanting; with little to make each protagonist distinctive, all three of them feel more or less interchangeable, and secondary characters are flat as well. Much of the dialogue is exclamatory, contributing to the markedly cheerful tone of the writing. In the cover art, the sisters are depicted in varying skin tones, though they are never described in the text; interior illustrations are rendered in grayscale. VERDICT The upbeat tone and mysterious origin story may attract some readers, but this series opener lacks substance. Those with a taste for superpowers or magic are better served by series like Kara West's "Mia Mayhem."—Lauren Strohecker, McKinley Elem. Sch., Elkins Park, PA

School Library Journal

2021-05-05
An origin story for mysterious, magical triplets.

Eight-year-old triplets Emmy, Clare, and Giselle celebrate Founding Day—the day their veterinarian father, Dr. J.A., found them—instead of a birthday. Each girl has a baby animal pet (bear cub Claw, wolf pup Fluffy, and eaglet Soar), feels a special connection to trillium flowers for their three petals, and is indistinguishable from her sisters aside from occasional telling-not-showing characterization and illustrations that render Giselle as a girl of color while the rest of the family presents White. On their eighth Founding Day, their father, upset to see that the trillium patch where he first found his daughters has been uprooted, diverges from their traditions to replant the flowers and to reveal that there’s more to the original Founding Day story than he’s told them. Back then, a large trillium flower glowed before bursting into sparkles and leaving trillium petal charms behind that Dr. J.A. now gives to the girls. Later, when Emmy and their younger brother, Zee, go to pick strawberries, Zee falls into a river. The triplets work together to try to save him, but it isn’t enough until the charms activate, giving the girls superpowers and new outfits, and making their pets huge. Although the woodsy setting (especially their treehouse home) and animals charm, the blandness of both characters and plot falls short of magical. In the simultaneously releasing sequel, Bestie Day, freed from the burden of expository backstory, the plot (a White bully and her subservient, Asian-presenting best friend endanger bees by cutting too many wildflowers) gets moving faster but offers only marginal improvements.

Hopefully future installments will carry some substance. (Fantasy. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews