Main Street #1: Welcome to Camden Falls

by Ann M. Martin

Book Overview

Poignant stories of two orphaned sisters who must leave their home to live with their grandmother in Camden Falls This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439868793
• ISBN13: 9780439868792
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.4" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Main Street Rocks!

This book may have a bit of a girly cover but for all the tom-boys out there, this book is not girly! This book is some how magical,and I encourage everyone to read it!

A Great Book

This is a great book. Main Street series would have to be my favorite book series ever. It is a bit sad, but otherwise I love them. Ann M. Martin makes great books.

I love it!

This story is a little sad I thought. Because Flora and Rubys parents die. But after a little while I forgot about the whole sad part. And it turned out fun and happy! Well I have read the second book too. And theres a question at the end of book one that doesnt get answered unless... you read book two. This story is about two young girls who are having the best life they can without their parents. You'll love this book! Just one suggestion...... if you lovvvve it read the whole series! :-D

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

I really enjoyed reading the first book in the new MAIN STREET series by Ann M. Martin. I am glad that she is doing another series. I have many girls in my 5th-grade class who are still reading THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB and this new series is a little more timely. It is the story of two sisters, Flora and Ruby, who lose their parents one night in a terrible car crash. Their grandmother picks up the pieces of their lives and they move to Camden Falls to live with her. Their grandmother owns a sewing shop and the girls help her out. There they meet two other girls -- Olivia, who lives next door and whose grandmother is co-owner of the shop, and Nikki, who is poor and lives on the wrong side of town. Flora, Olivia, and Nikki are all in sixth grade and have the same teacher, and Ruby will be in fourth grade. The author has made a simple story very contemporary by including many social issues that kids need to face each day. There is a family contending with Alzheimers Disease and another with downsizing. Flora is faced with trying to know who she is and who her parents were, there is a lady who has been in a concentration camp, another family who has a teen with Down Syndrome, and poverty. It is an intelligent and not watered down story. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series and introducing them to my class in the fall. Reviewed by: Marta Morrison

Deals with loss and renewal in a powerful way

Losing a parent is one of the most devastating experiences a child can have. Losing both at once is even more so. Welcome to Camden Falls (audiobook) captivated my eight-year-old daughter for hours as she quietly listened to the story of Ruby and Flora's lives unfold. Having lost both parents in a freak auto accident, both children are sent to live with their grandmother, Min, named due to her "in a minute" attitude when the kids would come visit to her and want to play. When asked what interested my daughter the most in the story, she couldn't really put it to words. My guess is she could relate to both the eight and eleven-year-old characters the most. Since I spent a great deal of my young adult life in New England, I enjoyed listening to the story as the author created a world of time and place I could vividly imagine. Although some of the concepts in the book are meant for 9-12 years olds, I think even eight-year-olds can enjoy many parts of the story. A delightful book! Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, lives near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children.