Dotti Enderle: The Magic Shades

Llewellyn (Paperback), ISBN 0-7387-0341-9

In the third book of the Fortune Tellers Club series, the trio of friends dabble in yet another form of magic. Gena discovers an unusual pair of sunglasses in a basket at the thrift shop. She loves their cat-eye shape, but her friends and fellow Fortune Tellers Club members Anne and Juniper disagree. Regardless, Gena tries them on. When she looks through them, Flash! She sees things that appear to be happening in the future! Uncertain as to whether the cat-eye sunglasses show the truth or lie, Gena purchases this latest treasure and vows to find out the answer.

The sunglasses offer upsetting revelations to Gena, including Anne as a blind girl, Gena’s dad in a pool of blood and her dad’s girlfriend snooping in her room. Anne and Juniper beg Gena to throw them out. Determined to uncover their mystery, Gena refuses. However, she begins to realize that the sunglasses don’t show the whole story, and that the future it portrays doesn’t always turn out the way it appears.

In addition to highlighting the importance of perception, Book Three of the Fortune Tellers Club series deals with Gena’s feelings of jealousy and dejection when her widowed father begins to date. As a result of this story line, the reader really gets to know Gena and her personal life, making the character much more accessible and real. A satisfying ending, which ties up important emotional issues, makes this book the most worthwhile of the series yet.

Lynne Marie Pisano

Lynne Marie Pisano (nee Remick) is a freelance writer, poet, book reviewer, SCBWI Metro New York LI Critique Group Coordinator and Co-Chair of the Long Island Children’s Writers and Illustrators. She lives in New York with her husband Michael, her son Kevin and a daughter named Kayla, and Dante, a Schipperke.