From the Files of Madison Finn
Twelve-year-old Madison Finn is allergic to change. Her two best friends are away at camp and Madison is not sure she’s going to survive the summer, let alone the beginning of junior high. Good thing she has a new laptop, which she uses to write and store all of her thoughts on friendship, her parents’ divorce, and her fear of being called a loser for not liking sushi!
At first, change seems like the worst thing ever, but with the support of her family, friends, and little pug, Phin, Madison realizes she can handle anything that comes her way.
I thought this book was very cute and 3rd through seventh grade girls would really enjoy it. I would recommend this book for the young and the young at heart...”
- Michelle K., via Amazon Reviews
BOOK EXCERPT
ONLY THE LONELY
From the Files of Madison Finn: Book 1
"HNNNNNNUGH! WHAT IS YOUR problem?" Madison grunted at her new orange laptop computer. She was smack-dab in the middle of downloading a picture of a super-cute Ursus maritimus (a.k.a. polar bear) when the screen just froze.
She knew her hard drive had plenty of memory and her virus program was up to date.
She punched all the right keys.
CAPS LOCK wasn't on.
But nothing
Sometimes in the past, Madison's computer screen would freeze, but only for a blip. This time, something was different. Maybe the computer wasn't really the one with a problem.
Maybe Madison was the frozen one.
Madison Francesca Fini, had a dreadful case of late-summer brain freeze. It was not the kind of brain freeze you get when you drink a Grape Slurpee too fast.
This was the kind of brain freeze that happens when your thoughts get stuck in a whirly swirl of loneliness, friendlessness, and total and utter boredom. This was the chronic, moronic, pain-in-the-brain freeze that happens when everyone you know is at camp but you're stuck at home with Mom; the summer reading list you were supposed to be finishing up hasn't even been unfolded; and you have no pool options on 95° days.
"Ugh!" Madison yelped, jumping up from her desk chair. "Laptop fail, Phin!
Why me?" She glared at her dog, Phineas T. Finn, who was curled up next to a giant metal file cabinet in the corner of her bedroom.
Phin poked up his wrinkly nose into the air and sneezed. "Rowro0000000!"
This pug hated it when his nap was interrupted.
"Well, I'll just restart it just to be sure everything's okay," Madison said out loud, groaning and hitting a few special keys. Pressing Control+Alt+Delete at once was a trick her dad had taught her.
Dad was the one who had computerized Madison in the first place. He had shown her what HTML meant before most of her classmates had clicked on their first mouses. And Dad always shared the best apps, games, and cool tools-all of them educational, of course. He loved computer jokes, too, even though he told the same ones more than once.
"Hey, Maddie, why did the Net chick cross the road?" he would ask.
"I dunno, Dad…. why?" Madison would say with pretend interest, even if it
was the third time she'd heard it.
"To get ONLINE!" Dad would laugh.
And that was one of his better jokes.