Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

This was another great Middle Grade novel from Deva Fagan, that I would definitely recommend!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

My daughter loved this book, she couldn't put it down!
The story is about Lark, an orphan doing her best to stay out of the factory. While trying to rob a museum Lark finds a prince performing a ritual to become the next Nightingale. From there the adventure begins! Great story.

What a clever and original story this is! It's a superhero tale set in a fantasy world full of oppression and poverty, and it's not quite like anything else I've read before. I absolutely loved main character Lark, who has a good heart but tends to find trouble, and the supporting characters are also well-rounded and entertaining. I loved the bickering between Lark and Prince Jasper! Lark's adventures once she accidentally becomes the legendary Nightingale are so much fun, but they also have a lot to say about friendship, kindness, and doing what's right. It takes the idea of a Chosen One and makes it into something much more honourable and important. Great action, lovely character development, and a unique setting make this one I'll definitely be adding to my shelves!

This was a great, great story of friendship, loyalty, and helping each other through difficult times.

Lark and her boarding house roommates' relationships really can speak volumes to kids looking for found family or a friend in the world. I felt myself laughing out loud at their banter and shenanigans.

Seriously, if you or your child are looking for a book that will warm your heart and have characters that wiggle their way into your mind forever, this is one to pick up.

Nightingale is a dystopian middle grade fantasy about a young girl who is the thief. While trying to rob a museum (for her daily room and board), Lark, comes across a prince doing a ritual to try to become the next Nightingale. The Nightingale was a famed savior of the people in the past. The sword that chooses the Nightingale chooses Lark and from there hijinks ensue

This middle grade superhero story does not speak down to the reader. There are many serious topics addressed such as poverty, children's hunger, children's labor rights, corporate greed. nationalism, workers rights, and the military industrial complex.

I also loved how the chosen one trope was turned on its head. The prince was the one who was supposed to have the sword (or so he thought) and become the hero however he becomes the sidekick to Lark.

I like how flawed Lark is. She is young girl who is struggling to figure out how to balance work and her friends and now this new thing-- being the Nightingale. She is cynical, she is a smart alec, but she's not entirely unlikable. This author found a way to make her spunky and spicy without being unlikable and that made for a better reading experience.

This was a fun book that could have benefited from shorter more tight storytelling and it would have been much more enjoyable because of that.

Thank you NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Nightingale is a fun middle-grade fantasy novel. It follows the story of Lark, a young orphan doing her best to stay out of the factory. When the story begins, we find Lark in the middle of robbing the museum, needing to steal something so that she can pay the woman who runs the boarding house she lives in. Lark has no intentions of interrupting Prince Jasper and accidentally becoming the next Nightingale, the country's fabled vigilante. But that's exactly what does happen. And the story that follows is Lark's journey of becoming the Nightingale.

The characterization was done very well. Fagan does an amazing done giving Sword a personality expressed solely through the limited movements a magical sword can do. The other characters were great as well.

From the beginning of the book, I really enjoyed the story world setting. Fagan did a great job of getting it set up from the first pages. I also enjoyed how magic is viewed in the story world as science that simply isn't understood yet. I've always found that to be a fun angle to take with magic.

The plot was fun and well-paced. I was a little dissatisfied with the climax and ending though. It wasn't bad... though it maybe was a tad cliche? I'm not sure. No matter what, it didn't ruin the novel for me. I just maybe would have liked to see something different.

I do think there was a formatting issue with the e-ARC since it seemed like a chunk of an action scene was missing, which made it a touch confusing to follow. But that was probably a formatting issue and not an issue with the book itself.

If you're looking for a middle-grade novel with adventure, magic, friendship, and fun, Nightingale may be just the right book for you.

NIGHTINGALE is such an entertaining novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, premise, plot, and action. The cover is what drew me in the first place.

This book was received as an ARC from Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing - Atheneum Books for Young Readers in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

The character Deva Fagan constructed in Nightingale were really fascinating that it almost seemed like a movie was playing in my mind. A heist that was designed to steal a fortune so Lark can escape from her current situation turned into stealing a magic sword from a prince that crowned her the Nightingale that protects from evil sweeping across the kingdom. I can totally see this book becoming a movie and children of all ages will be in line for tickets and awaiting the release of the DVD and BluRay. I also love the additional context of Lark having trust issues from her upbringing and having this great power it seems impossible for her to manage on her own, so it is hard to ask her fellow friends from the orphanage to help but later on as she sees that they come to her side, her confidence boosts and she can fight the power of evil. I absolutely love books that have a teachable moment incorporated with some fantasy adventure.

We will consider adding this title to our JFiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.