Dawn Chandler by Eliza Noel Review

I haven’t been reading a lot of middle grade fiction lately, but Dawn Chandler reminded me of all I’ve been missing—innocent characters, whimsical settings, and a straightforward plot driven by an overarching moral of the story. Dawn Chandler beautifully checked each of these boxes and more.

Warning: mild spoilers ahead!

Eliza Noel, coming from a big family herself, wonderfully captures the blithe chaos of a large family with her natural, affable dialogue and leapfrogging focal points. The very first scene of the book was reminiscent of busy mornings—there’s a tangible energy among her words that allows the reader to be in the Jennings’ kitchen as they get ready for the day. These first few pages pulled me into the book.

Noel has a knack for balancing a large cast of characters. Aided only by a list in the front of the book—a unique feature that reminded me of the old American Girl books, which, needless to say, I absolutely adored—she gives each character their own identity and differentiates all of them with an arsenal of nuances and dialogue styles. I rarely found myself mixing up characters, and on the few occasions I did, I could just flip to the front and read the character list.

Though I found the dialogue just a bit juvenile at some points, this book is middle grade, so that’s to be expected. But other than that, Dawn Chandler is bright, nostalgic, and a wonderful read for anyone of any age.

Comments

Building With Words and Writing With Brick

Above anything else that I am, I am a storyteller. I am prone to devoting myself to the worlds in my head, as most storytellers are. Like all writers, I tend to commit my stories to words—language is my primary medium. But it isn’t my only. This is why I am enthralled by architecture: I see buildings as another medium for storytelling. But, unlike books or paintings, buildings don’t stop becoming something once they’ve been built. Once started, they continue to tell themselves. They are a vehicle for my stories—they often help propel them in new directions I wouldn’t have otherwise deemed possible. My buildings are as much a part of The Knowers as my books. Skylar's House - Final Enter Me, sophomore year. The Knowers is going through major overhaul. The Eminence isn’t born yet. I think I want to be a marine biologist, I have no idea how to draw, I have to take Scripture studies for my Catholic school’s religious curriculum. Yes, the Bible can be ...

Author Interview with Eliza Noel

One of my favorite things about being a teen author is that we have the entire world at our fingertips, which makes for wonderful communication among us, regardless of where we are. Even though Eliza Noel lives in California and I’m over in New York, I was able to participate in her blog tour, which allows her to reach the computers of people worldwide without any strenuous travel. I had the opportunity—and the honor—to interview Eliza about her upcoming release, Dawn Chandler. Regarded as “a story of faith, family, and contentment”, the middle-grade novel follows twelve-year-old Dawn from Fresno to Lone Pine, California as her parents decide to homeschool her and the rest of her siblings. Dawn isn’t thrilled about being homeschooled, but she’s even more upset about the fact that her family might be moving. I asked Eliza questions about her book and her writing process to share, marking Teenage Lexicon a stop on her blog tour. Dawn Chandler is a mi...

Why I Didn't NaNo This Year

November has just drawn to a close, and lots of brave, successful writers have taken the beginning of December as the time to share their projects started or completed through NaNoWriMo. But why, do you ask, am I not one of them? 2017 was my first, and last, year participating in NaNoWriMo. In theory, it seemed like a great idea. I had only a few chapters of Knowers Book Two completed, and I wanted to get more of it done. It seemed like a good way to get in touch with other authors and advance my skills. I signed up for it on November 3rd because I kind of forgot November was a thing until then. It took about three more days for it to become the bane of my existence. I was a junior in high school in November 2017. For those of you who have completed junior year, you know that this wasn’t the time to try to write 50,000 words of a novel. I was also in a musical that opened second weekend of November, editor of my school’s literary magazine, and taking three AP clas...

Teenage Lexicon

Search This Blog