I loved and adored The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and was super excited to see that Kelly had written a second one. I bought it from BN as soon as it came out, but then it languished on my shelf a few a months as I got some other books out of the way.

I didn't love this as much as the first book, which isn't terribly surprising. Evolution was nigh perfection, and the joy I got from the story was watching Calpurnia discover the natural world.

In this book, there is less of that and more actual plot lines. One involves Travis, Calpurnia's animal-mad little brother who is determined to make every wild animal a pet. Another involves a hurricane that hits the city of Galveston, leading to a cousin moving in with the Tates. There are a few smaller plots but those are the two biggest ones.

One thing I noticed in this book which I hadn't before was that Kelly gave each of the Tate brothers a distinct personality and they were very easy to tell apart. This is not always the case in books, where characters are sometimes interchangeable. I greatly appreciated that.

There are still some simple explanations of science experiments, completely with illustrations and diagrams, for young readers to try and replicate. (Thumbs up. Hooray science learning!)

A nice, if not critical addition, to the further adventures of Calpurnia. ( )

A great sequel! ( )

Una lettura piacevole e leggera, ma non l'ho trovato divertente come il primo libro della serie. ( )

"Thirteen-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate of turn-of-the-20th-century Texas—introduced in the 2010 Newbery Honor–winning The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate—is more focused than ever on unlocking the secrets of the natural world.

But Callie Vee has her hands full with her tender brother Travis, who never met a wild animal he didn’t want to adopt (including a possibly diseased armadillo), and her ever exasperated mother, who wishes her one daughter among six sons would master the domestic arts instead of fixating on her Scientific Notebook and Charles Darwin (the source of the chapter-opening excerpts). In fact, of all Callie’s daily trials, the hardest to stomach is the injustice of being treated as a “half citizen” just because she’s a girl. But not to worry….Callie, the witty and sincere narrator, is “smart as a tree full of owls” and won’t be denied her dreams of being a veterinarian or anything else she puts her mind to. Animal lovers will revel in the abundant anecdotes about the benevolent country vet and Travis’ mangy strays—some heart-wrenching, some hilarious—while learning plenty about nature (“from pond water up to the stars”), the deadly 1900 Galveston hurricane, and early Texas history as recounted by Callie’s scholarly and beloved Granddaddy.

A warm, welcome stand-alone companion to Kelly’s lauded debut. (Historical fiction. 10-14)"

. . . On the one hand, this is an engaging and fun piece of historical fiction, with quirky, likable characters.

On the other hand, I kept being distracted by the extent to which Callie is incredibly privileged in her context. The story foregrounds her lack of gender privilege (which is a real thing, and a legitimate problem), but glosses over her race and class privilege. Compare her choices and opportunities to the opportunities a Native American girl, a Hispanic girl, a Black girl, or a poor white girl would have had in Texan at the time the story was written, and the difference is stark. From the trajectory of the story, it's clear that her family's relative wealth will allow her to achieve her dreams despite the sexism she faces. Good for her, but . . . ( )