BOOK REVIEW - The Burning Pendulum (Fiction)

The Burning Pendulum by Dotti Enderle © 2005 Llewellyn ISBN
0-7387-435-0 144 pages + Preview of Book 8 Paperback $4.99 (U.S.) $6.50
(Canada)

This is the seventh book in the "Fortune Teller's Club" series by Dotti
Enderle (aimed at the 8 to 12 age group). Juniper, Gena and Anne once again
find themselves in a bind (actually, this time it is almost all on Juniper).
This misadventure starts out so innocently. The middle school is looking
for donations for their library and Juniper wants to donate her favorite
series of books. The series deals with a group of psychic teenagers who
solve mysteries (gee, I wonder where that idea came from?). In the course
of giving a book report on the series, she demonstrates how to use a
pendulum.

The mother of one of her classmates feels a need to protect children from
"wicked literature," and goes so far as accusing Juniper of devil worship
and demanding that she be expelled from school. When the Principal does not
act quickly enough for her, she starts a petition drive, and brings the
subject up to the school board.

Juniper's mother is incensed - not by the fact that Juniper wants to donate
the books (she's fine with that), but by the fact that the Principal has
"asked" (required) Juniper to select a different book for the library so the
problem will go away. The entire concept of book banning offends her.

Juniper's life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother is fuming, her classmates
are split, her younger brother is being harassed. And all of this happens
because of a book. She has an ally in the Librarian., who refuses to allow
the Principal to remove the books from the shelves until the School Board
can make a ruling. She supports Juniper so much that she assigns a research
project on banned books to her.

The offended parent not only wants the books removed and Juniper suspended,
she would like to see the entire family out of town, for the "safety" of the
children. Her agenda boils over into the community as she starts her
petition drive. Juniper, in the meantime, would just like for it all to go
away, but she knows that nothing will happen until the next School Board
meeting.

While using a newly created divinatory system (one of the on-going themes in
this series is that divinatory systems should be individualized and
personalized), she gets a clue to an unexpected answer. She tells no one
about the answer, but then uses it to save the day - and her own school
career.