I haven't read any of Claire Swinarski's books before, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well crafted this story was. There was a definite emphasis on characters with a lot of depth and identity. This one is definitely on the younger side of YA since a lot of the characters are 13, so there are definitely age specific things and behaviors that are pretty present - which for the target age group is fantastic. It's not all light topics though, there's definitely some conflicts and tougher subjects such as losing a parent and grief, and how other people can be affected by the same events. Overall this story was really cute, with those slices of heavier topics, it was really well balanced and a fun read.

What a perfectly timed release for Take It From the Top. It's your next YA must-read, and trust me - it's so good, even adults won't be able to resist. This story is everything: drama, heart, and a friendship for the ages that will leave you humming your favorite Wicked tunes.

At Lamplighter Lake, a magical summer musical theater camp, two very different girls are thrown together in the ultimate duet of fate. Eowyn, a girl with an incredible voice but crippling stage fright, is still grieving the loss of her mother. Jules, scrappy and determined, has worked her way up from nothing. Their friendship spans several years and the book contains dual POVs that are set in the present but also review past years spent at the camp. In the last year, Jules has ignored Eowyn's text messages and attempts to reach out after what happened in the season finale at camp. Her reaction to Eowyn after arriving at camp is ice-cold and her interactions throughout camp are short and indifferent, causing a rift between the two that Eowyn doesn't understand but tries to fix.

This book nails the opposites attract friendship trope in the best way. Eowyn's vulnerability paired with Jules's grit makes for a dynamic duo that will have you cheering them on both onstage and off. The Wicked vibes are EVERYTHING (Broadway fans, rejoice!).

By the final bow, you’ll be ready to stand up and cheer—maybe even shed a tear or two. This is a story about breaking barriers, lifting each other up, and finding strength in your voice and your friendships.

Take It From the Top is perfect for anyone who loves musical theater, YA novels, or stories that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I love summer camp books, so it was a joy to discover this one that came out all the way in November, just when it’s getting cool enough outside to for me (in Florida) to miss the summer again. I’ve been a long-time fan of Swinarski’s books, so that also made me feel pretty confident about reading this one.

Like her other books, Take It From the Top explores complicated grief. For Eowyn, this comes in the form of grief over a lost friendship but also her feelings of isolation an rejection in her family. One of the ways this manifests for her is through pretty intense anxiety on stage. It’s not until a new director comes to camp that an adult seems to notice Eowyn’s struggle and create opportunities to help her.

Jules has been a star at camp for several years, and she feels great about the fact that it’s her talent that have brought her to the top. Learning that she had unexpected help behind-the-scenes calls her self-confidence into question. Even with her abilities, Jules has to work hard because of her family’s financial circumstances and her dad’s disability. She can’t help resenting it when others’ privilege hands them things she has to struggle for.

The story examines some of the different forms of privilege, from financial privilege to the benefits of an emotionally present and supportive family. The narrative alternates between Eowyn and Jule’s perspectives, so we witness their challenges and their versions of the events that led to their friendship crumbling.

The frank exploration of these feelings and circumstances made me think a lot about the expression about not judging others because they fight battles we know nothing about. Each character faced hardships the other couldn’t imagine.

What great timing for this book -- it is about a musical theater summer camp where the students are performing Wicked, and it came out right when the movie Wicked was released! I absolutely loved this middle grade novel with all the friendship drama and misunderstandings, but with the unique setting of a musical theater summer camp. The two main characters, Jules and Eowyn, are flawed and lovable. This book is going to be popular with fans of Wicked or summer camp stories.

For those who love musical theatre, summer camp, or any story centered around friendship drama and power dynamics, this is a great pick. Eowyn can't wait to be reunited with her best friend at their favorite place on earth - Lamplighter Lake Summer Camp, a musical theatre performance summer camp. But this year, things are off between the two friends, and Eowyn doesn't know why. The story is told in a series of flashbacks over the camp years from different perspectives and the reader learns of the challenges both girls have experienced. Eowyn's mom died of cancer in her first year of camp, her brother is now a Broadway theatre star, her Dad is wealthy and loves her but is busy with work and her brother's career, and she has a terrible case of stage fright that gets worse each year. Jules is insanely talented and hardworking, but money is very tight in her big family, and she constantly has to give things up or be scrappy to make ends meet, yet her mom is her biggest fan and is always there for her. Will the girls be able to share their real feelings and overcome their differences or are some friendships meant to dissolve?

“This. This is where we belong.”

Told over the course of six summers spent at a summer camp called Lamplighter Lake, Eowyn Becker and her best friend, Jules Marrigan, experience a reunion gone wrong. While Eowyn’s successful Broadway-star older brother often overshadows her, Jules is the only person who’s seen her as more. Others may attribute Eowyn’s interest in theater to her famous mother and brother, but Jules has always seen her clearly. For this reason, when their best friend reunion doesn’t go as Eowyn planned and Jules barely looks at her, let alone interacts with her, Eowyn is left more confused than anything else. The situation is only made more tense as they’re both cast as the leads Glinda and Elphaba in the camp’s production of Wicked. Told in alternating perspectives, Take It from the Top is, at its core, a story about friendship.

Take It from the Top is a heartwarming story about growing up and fighting for friendships. While the summer camp setting was fun and fresh, the character development in this novel undoubtedly stole the show. I appreciated that rather than just centering on a simple miscommunication, the story explores how family situations and circumstances can create a rift in relationships. Even as someone who was never really into theater, I could still feel the nostalgia this book might evoke among readers who remember their own theater performances or summer camp days. This book is truly a love letter to theater kids and made me feel comforted in a way I didn’t know was possible considering I couldn’t personally relate to that aspect. Take It from the Top is a story worth young readers' time as it deals with conflict related to family, friendship and other themes that are extremely fitting and relevant to young teenager’s lives. On a more syntactic note, I enjoyed the manner in which the story is told. While the alternating timeline between a ‘then’ and ‘now’ situation is often overdone and somewhat unnecessary, I felt that it was fitting for properly fleshing out the story and the characters. I’d recommend Take It from the Top to anyone looking for a short, easy read about the complexities of family and friendship—and, of course, anyone who enjoys theater! It’s an especially perfect read for readers patiently awaiting the release of the new Wicked movie!

Take It From the Top is told in dual point of view from (ex?) best friends, Jules and Eowyn. They have very different home lives and struggles and they envy each other’s perceived privileges (money or family). It felt realistic to what middle graders are actually dealing with. I was glad we got to see both sides of the story as it was building up to what happened last summer. Unfortunately, it felt a bit underdeveloped. There were a lot of different plot lines as it was told throughout 6 summers but they didn’t all have resolutions in the end and some of the ideas were mentioned once and never revisited. I hated all of the adults in this book and I especially hated that we didn’t get to see an Eva/Eowyn bond develop.
Overall, it was a good middle grade read about different summers at theater camp but I wish we would have gotten less plot lines or more chapters to really round it out.

Take It From the Top is a fun middle grade read featuring two young teenagers who are dealing with the loss of their friendship at theater camp. After years of being inseparable, Jules and Eowyn are struggling with all the ways they are different -- Eowyn lives alone with her rich and widowed doctor dad, while Jules lives with her paycheck-to-paycheck parents and little sisters. Told over one summer (with flashbacks), this book does a great job showing how these two girls are both right...and both wrong. I feel like it's a smart way to help kids understand conflict resolution and learning to see the world from other perspectives. Other topics include: financial privilege, panic attacks/anxiety, and working toward your dreams

Set at a musical theater summer camp in northern Wisconsin, kids who love musicals - especially Wicked - should enjoy this book. This is the 6th year that Eowyn has attended with her best friend from camp, Jules. But this year something is off with their friendship. There are some common tropes in this book and the dual narration is very lopsided, but this should be a good choice for theater kids.

What went wrong? It was supposed to be the perfect summer, back at the beloved theater camp with her best friend, co-starring in their dream musical. Thirteen-year-old Eowyn and Jules come from different worlds, but they get each other, want the same thing, and planned on sharing the limelight together. Now Jules can barely stand to look at Eowyn, and Eowyn is almost sure she doesn’t know why. Alternating first-person and third-person chapters trace the story back and forth, from age eight to fourteen, exploring privilege, insecurity, jealousy, and ambition. Fans of friendship dramas and theater lovers will be delighted by the exhaustive exploration, but some readers may wish the curtain had come down sooner. Both main characters are white. Thanks to Quill Tree and NetGalley for an advance reader's copy in return for an unbiased review .

Thank you to NetGalley, author Claire Swinarski, and Harper Collins Children's Books: QuillTree Books for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

Yay, another middle grade home run from Claire Swinarski!! I was thrilled to see her previous book, What Happened to Rachel Riley?, on the Texas Lonestar List for this year, as I really enjoyed it. I was so excited to read another work by her, especially one set at a musical theatre camp, as that is right up my alley. Take It from the Top definitely delivered and was the perfect palate cleanser for this current slump that I am slowly getting out of. I thought Jules and Eowyn were both interesting characters, and I thought the format of storytelling over the course of several summers worked well. I don't know if I particularly loved the first-person perspective by Eowyn and then third-person by Jules (I think it would have worked better both one form or the other), but I felt that Swinarski did a great job of making them both nuanced characters. The setting of the camp was absolutely perfect, and if you were even slightly interested in theater at any point, you will know how true this book rings! It was perfectly paced for a middle grade read and definitely on the sweeter side. I loved seeing the complications of middle school friendship portrayed, and there was so much in both girls I was able to identify with personally. I look forward to future work from this author, as she has really impressed me with her MG catalog!

I really love how Claire Swinarski writes modern day preteen girls. They always have such heart without being overly "good." They have genuine feelings and genuine flaws that lead to real consequences. I appreciate that she seems to truly understand this age group and can write situations that hook them in and keep them interested throughout the novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC! This was my first Claire Swinarski novel and I really enjoyed it! I loved the summer camp vibes (I would live at summer camp if I could) and how she very accurately portrayed how friends can truly misunderstand each other’s circumstances. The ending was satisfying. I liked the time hopping and the dual POV and it was done in a way that was easy to follow so I was never lost. The musical theater stuff was fun, even though I’m not a musical theater person. Definitely not a requirement to enjoy this book.

Eowyn's narration was compelling and her feelings very evocative. Her struggles with her family and with navigating the changes around her, including the potential loss of a deep friendship, were really good reading! But it would almost have been better to have no chapters from the perspective of her maybe-no-longer-best friend Jules than the few chapters we did get, because it really highlighted what short shrift that perspective got, and how then unrealistic some of the events of the novel were. The Jules character really deserved an equal part of the book, and it was weird that she got, like, a sixth of it instead. I think die-hard theatre kids will definitely love this, though.

Eowyn and her best friend Jules have always dreamed of heading to Broadway together, becoming stars, and especially starring in <i>Wicked</i> together. But this summer, something is different. Jules won't talk to Eowyn, and Eowyn's developing stage fright is getting worse and worse. And yet, now the whole camp is putting on a performance of their dream musical and the girls have to work past their history to keep their dreams of the future alive.

This book is a love letter to drama camps, and it made me wish for a time machine so I could go back and attend one. I did relate very strongly to Eowyn's longing for her mother and Jules's longing for a more financially stable life. Swinarski has a way of developing characters that it makes it easy for the reader to empathize with both sides of the conflict at the same time. It was so sweet and emotional, that I had a hard time putting it down. I would recommend this for sure!

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for providing this ARC for review!

Take It From The Top by Claire Swinarski is about best friends Eowyn and Jules attending their sixth summer of Broadway Camp at Lamplighter Lake Summer Camp. However, when Eowyn arrives, everything seems to go wrong, including her friendship with Jules. Told from the perspective of both girls, things aren't always what they seem.

I'd like to thank NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy ARC of this Young Adult (YA) novel, which I received for free in exchange for my honest review. Not having read any of the author's previous works, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to say I am impressed.

The story switches back and forth between the present and past as well as switching from Eowyn's and Jules' perspectives giving the reader an insight to how each girl feels. I loved being able to see the perspective of each girl because they both had very valid points. One of the biggest lessons in Take It From The Top is that the grass isn't always greener on the other side . . . each girl was envious of the others family and life. Additionally, it taught that people from different backgrounds could be friends.

I never went away to a sleepaway camp as a kid, and this story made me wish I had that experience. However, if I had, I'd probably would have been too homesick to enjoy it.

Take It From The Top by Claire Swinarski is a great coming of age story perfect for kids between the ages of 8 and 12, especially those who are fans of broadway plays, singing, and acting. Five out of five stars is what I gave this book.

This will be Eowyn and Jules sixth summer at Lamplighter Lake Summer Camp for the Arts. Eowyn can't wait to reach her cabin, reunite with Jules, and dive into eight weeks of musical theater, dance, vocal training and acting. Escaping the shadow of her older brother, an accomplished Broadway actor and singer, will also be a welcome change. At camp, the busyness helps to ease the pain of her mother's death, yet Eowyn finds herself grappling with an unexpected performance anxiety. Receiving only a spotty few texts from Jules since last summer has not made the situation any easier. But when the two girls get to camp, their reunion is awkward and feels off. Why is Jules being super friendly with everyone else, and standoffish with her? She will barely even look at Eowyn and she can't figure out why.

Take It From the Top spans across six summers at camp, told through flashbacks from present day— their sixth year— to previous summers spent together. At one time the girls shared a really strong bond, they even dreamed of performing Wicked on Broadway together one day. The flashbacks reveal how their friendship evolved and how the current rift developed between them. How Jules' experiences during the times between camp were very different than Eowyn's. Jules family is struggling financially and getting the money for camp has been a huge strain. Meanwhile Eowyn comes from a place of privilege, her dad is a doctor, her brother is a famous actor, and she's able to take private lessons. What is missed in this equation is that both girls think that the others life is so much better than their own. Eowyn is envious of Jules' extended family, how her parents are always present at her shows. Just once she would like her dad to make an effort to come. She feels quite alone and misses her mom. Jules is upset because she was told by one of the instructors that she'll have to work twice as hard as Eowyn to prove herself because things will just be handed to Eowyn. She resents having to work so hard to find ways around her family's money problems to get her headshots, to have proper name brand clothing and to improve her singing without lessons. I felt like Eowyn seemed to be trying harder to reach out to Jules and make amends. It was difficult because she's also slightly clueless to her privilege which is worsened when she lets the source of Jules' scholarship slip.

The story made for a really good summertime read; it had the whole summer camp vibe going for it, minus all the pranks that are usually associated with being at camp. It's perfect for fans of the theater, musicals or acting with lots of references to Wicked. Which is especially timely given that the movie will be coming out soon.

There are demanding teachers and kids doing something that they feel passionate about. I think kids will relate to the feeling of wanting to be successful, receive praise and recognition. Both Eowyn and Jules were searching for a moment in the limelight and a chance for that opening role. While also balancing their hurt feelings and trying to not let it overwhelm all their senses. Their friendship was complex and yes messy but eventually they learned how to let go of the hurt and began to see the good moments that they previously shared. Overall, a really fun story with lots of theater kid appeal.

** A huge thank you to SparkPoint Studio for the E- ARC in exchange for an honest review**

As someone who went to summer camp, this is the type of book I would have loved in middle school. Take It from the Top tells the story of two best friends, Eowynn and Jules, who meet each summer at a performing arts camp. Eowynn tells the POV of their current, sixth summer, while Jules tells the story of their previous summers. Eowynn is confused why Jules is upset with her and slowly the story unravels as to how each girl envies something the other has that they are missing. Eowynn is missing her mom, especially now that her father is so busy with her brother's blossoming Broadway career. Jules is missing the financial security that Eowynn's family has. The story unravels well with just a few kinks in keeping track of the summers in flashback. My one critique would have been to have a few more chapters with Jules POV in the present day to pull everything together at the end, Overall, I can't wait to share this title with my students.

I absolutely loved this story! Eowyn and Jules are both wonderful and wonderfully-crafted characters. I wish I could be friends with both of them…and still I found myself ready to smack both of them at various points throughout the story (okay, so I was a little invested). Like all of Claire Swinarksi's books, character development takes center stage, but Take it from the Top also brings the setting to life in such a tangible way. I could practically feel the stage makeup tickling my nose and imagine the chilly lake and cozy cabins of summer camp (and that says a lot considering I never went to summer camp).

This is an obvious pick for the theater lovers in your life. What might not be as obvious from the description is how much Take it from the Top is a book about families—how they form us, how they hurt us, how they heal us, how they make us who we are and how who we are is not defined by them. The friendship between Jules and Eowyn is the central relationship in the story, but the entire plot revolves around how their two respective families and family situations create a conflict that Jules and Eowyn have to work to overcome. Perhaps this reminds you a little of a very famous play? Maybe the name Jules was chosen as a subtle nod? While these very normal American families may be no Capulets and Montagues with ill blood between them, Take it from the Top presents a more (to my mind) interesting and relevant inter-family dynamic: can our backgrounds be so different that true understanding is impossible? Of course the answer is no…but it is also: it might be difficult. And that's okay. Because so many of the things worth putting our time into in life are difficult. Like family. And friendship. And singing on stage in front of hundreds of people.

As usual, a note to parents on whether this book is right for your child. Here are few topics and themes I'll discuss with my children either before, during, or after they read Take it from the Top:
-death of a parent and how it affects a family
-a couple cases of characters taking God's name in vain (my children are very sensitive to this)
-a lot of crushes… The main characters are 13, and my 13-year-old has absolutely no interest in crushes. :) For that reason, I'll probably give it to my older daughters first. I love that the boy-girl relationships are always innocent—the relationship between Eowyn and her crush is particularly very sweet, but I would discuss with my kids that she sneaks out of her cabin to talk to him at night several times… I know, I know, kids do this. But I'm a mom of teens and my child safety detector is on high alert.
-some of the songs and musicals mentioned are more mature than what I let my 13-year-olds view, so I'll be giving them a heads up before they start searching Youtube…

Performing arts summer camp, friendship breakups and dramas, a bit of romance. Add it all up for a fun summer romp for middle grade readers.