OMG: Oh My Godmother, The Magic Mistake by Barbara Brauner- OPTIONAL

Brauner, Barbara. OMG: Oh My Godmother, The Magic Mistake, 245 pgs. Hyperion Books, 2014. $16.99. Language: G; Violence G; Content: G. Lacey Unger-Ware has another encounter with a fairy godmother in the sequel to the Oh My Godmother series. This time, she gets an opportunity to be accepted into the Godmother Academy as long as she completes her mission to help her best friend’s mom (Gina) fall in love and have a dream wedding within just a few days. Lacey is torn because the Academy sounds great, but it means she’ll have to leave her family behind forever. Lacey works with her friends, as well as some godmother magic, to find the perfect man for Gina, the perfect dress, and the perfect setting for the wedding. While completing these tasks, Lacey runs into crazy problems and has to scramble to make everything fall into place. In the end, she realizes that she doesn’t have all of the information she needs to make the correct match for Gina, but luckily there’s enough time to fix everything anyway. I was unimpressed with this novel. It felt too forced, as if the authors were trying to make the characters really moral but couldn’t get around the fact that they had to be a little sneaky to accomplish what they needed to. So to get around that, they’d say things similar to, “Which wasn’t REALLY a lie.” I also thought it was too stereotypical of what people think would be a twelve year old girl’s personality. I also thought that some of the messages about love and marriage were a little too cliche and not necessarily a healthy view. I love stories about magic and fantasy, but I felt this cut corners in terms of the reality portions of this book  EL, MS –OPTIONAL. Reviewed by: Shay, School Librarian