Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World

by Candice RansomIva Honeysuckle Discovers the World

152 pages of family adventures for middle readers

Iva longs for adventure.  Iva wants to do amazing things, but Iva is in the middle and that makes achieving greatness a challenge.  You see her mom and her aunt married brothers and planned to have children (double- first cousins) who would grow up to be best friends and neighbors.  That worked for her older sister, Arden and cousin, Hunter.  It worked for little sister, Lily Pearl and cousin, Howard.  But it did not work for Iva and her bossy, rule-following, perfect cousin, Heaven. Summer is here and Iva has decided this is her opportunity to make important discoveries.  Recently while her dad was cleaning out the attic he found some interesting artifacts:  a small black journal containing tire pressure records, a geography bee medal dated 1923 and a stack of magazines.  These things had once belonged to her great grandfather and reading through the old National Geographic magazines, Iva discovered a map.  It seems to show where General Braddock had stopped in Uncertain, Virginia (the very town Iva lives in now) and had buried a cannon full of gold.  The weight needed to be left behind so his troops could move more quickly to battle.  That treasure has been waiting in the ground for over two hundred years and Iva is determined it will be found. Iva’s plans for the summer are set, but things don’t go as smoothly as planned.  It’s hard to discover things on your own.  It takes time to avoid people – Iva will do most anything to keep away from Heaven.  Iva’s mom thinks she should be nicer to her cousin.  She thinks she should do things with her so she has a friend, but Heaven is always in the way and she never wants to do anything of interest.  First there is the yard sale, then there’s the kitten and then Iva’s only friend, Mrs. Compton becomes Heaven’s friend too.  Iva doesn’t know what to do or how to take Mrs. Compton’s advice, “If you are a friend you’ll have a friend.” You’ll have to read Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World to find out about the discoveries that are made.  There’s more than one, and while they may not surprise you, you’ll be glad to have Iva Honeysuckle as an explorer friend.