5^th Grade and Up

Bicycle has been back from her cross-country adventure with her robot-like bike, named Fortune, for just a month when it starts malfunctioning, insisting that they pedal away from their home in Washington D.C. to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. Once there, they discover a scrapyard where bicycles are being crushed and recycled, and it appears they are too late to save them.
Bicycle and Fortune head to a convenience store so Bicycle can drown her sorrows with a chocolate bar. Much to her astonishment, she meets her long-lost family there. Bicycle learns that they have been looking for her since she disappeared as a toddler and that she is a quintuplet. She is happy to go live with them except for one thing: her family doesn’t share her passion for cycling. In fact, her sisters have never even ridden a bike.
Then Fortune acts up again, leading Bicycle back to the scrapyard where she discovers that there are four bicycles left and they were all made by the same inventor who created her Fortune. Four seems too coincidental to ignore – the perfect number to bring her sisters up to speed. She sets a plan in motion to rescue the bikes, a plan that, if it works, will help her fit into her family and still stay true to her cycling self.

I was not expecting ‘The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle’ to have a sequel. I enjoyed it just as much as the first book, if not more.

A month has passed since Bicycle’s cross-country biking adventure. Now she must face the most challenging adventure of all time: Family life!

I loved the moment Bicycle and her four look-alikes first saw each other. Imagine looking across the street and seeing four people who look exactly like you. Freaky, right?!

I love Bicycle’s sisters! It was easy to tell them apart once I knew their names and got to know their personalities. I’m not going to share their names, but I will say that Bicycle’s name isn’t that strange by comparison.

Bicycle has a rough time transitioning from her quiet independent life at the Mostly Silent Monastery to a new commotion-filled life with a mom, a dad, and four sisters. Her parents (mainly the mom) are overly protective over all five girls, which is understandable considering they lost Bicycle when she was a toddler. Bicycle’s sisters want to branch out and do their own thing. But they have given up asking to do anything because their mom says no to everything that doesn’t involve the family being together at all times.

I could go on and on about this book, but I feel I have already given away too much. This is a spectacular story full of quirky characters, unexpected adventures and addresses the importance of open communication between kids and parents.

I have my fingers crossed that Bicycle’s family adventures are just getting started.