Review of Annie’s Adventures: My Paris Connection by Anna Alden-Tirrill

We recently received 4 new books from a series called Annie’s Adventures by Anna Alden-Tirrill (the 5th is almost ready, too).  The main character is a 13-year-old homeschooled girl named Annie.  In the first book she and her parents are living in Paris for a year while her dad teaches at the university there.  She and her mom have lots of field trips exploring the old city, and while they are at the Louvre, Annie witnesses an art theft.  The story gets a lot more interesting from there–with arrests, threats, police and body guards, kidnapping, and a sting operation to catch the thieves!

It was the perfect book for my 10-year-old daughter. Here is what she said about it: “It was exciting and I couldn’t stop reading it until I reached the end.  I like the main character Annie. I especially liked that it was set in Paris!”

I liked that Annie is a great role model.  She’s brave, kind, and respectful.  She is also caring.  This first book in the series has the theme of friendship, and she becomes friends with an unlikely person.  I love the fact that she’s homeschooled as it helps my kids not feel so alone.  It was fun to have lots of French words sprinkled throughout the book–learning a little bit of a foreign language. 🙂  I also liked the Christian themes spread throughout the book.  Annie’s parents and pastor share Scripture verses at times that fit in with the story.  There is one other theme that I feel was important.  Annie (through the help of the police) goes through an experience of emailing, then instant messaging, and then Skyping someone she has never met.  It is good to witness how this can easily happen to our naive kids, to be drawn in and trapped by someone who could potentially hurt them.

What I didn’t like:  The books aren’t the highest quality of writing.  The dialogue is a little stilted, and some of the characters (such as Megan) aren’t very well developed.  I didn’t like the fact that a 13-year-old girl is going out alone with a 17-year-old boy, even if he is her bodyguard.  (Update:  We find out in a later book that he is actually her cousin.)   I also didn’t like the illustrations.  Almost every page had a drawing or graphic.  They weren’t matched in the style or quality.  Some were drawn; others were the type of graphics or clip-art that you can find in a word processing program.

That being said, my daughter and I are looking forward to reading and sharing reviews of the next books.  She is already halfway through the second book!  The author said we could feel free to host a giveaway of the books after we read them, but sorry, we’re keeping them!  I have 3 younger girls who will be growing up to read them next!

Check out the Annie’s Adventure’s website to order these books.

Or here:

(Disclosure:  I received complimentary copies of the Annie’s Adventures series in order to write these honest reviews. This post contains affiliate links.)

This post is linked to many wonderful blogs!