I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, right now: I LOVE “nice” books. Books you can read aloud to a class or to your daughter or your niece. Books you can handsell with a huge smile to a grandmother looking for the perfect holiday book for her granddaughter or a mom looking for a birthday party gift for a kid she doesn’t know or a shy little fifth-grader reading above her level or just anyone looking for a little lift.

This is a very nice book, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

Annie, Zoe and Genna have been best friends for years. They’re finishing up eighth grade, and, as often happens when kids reach this point in their lives, everything seems to be changing. When they were little, they called themselves the Teashop Girls, hanging out at Annie’s grandmother’s tea shop, the Steeping Leaf, and writing lists of rules about how to treat one another and how to stay friends forever. But now Genna seems boy-crazy and obsessed with acting, and Zoe’s all tied up with tennis, and the big mega-chain coffee shop across the street is sucking much-needed business away from the Leaf. Annie embarks on a well-intentioned (though not always well thought out) quest to save the Leaf and her friendships.

The book is sprinkled with tidbits of trivia about tea drinking and the history of tea, copies of old ads for tea and some delightful illustrations by Sujean Rim. I’m only an occasional tea drinker, but I had to have some while I read this. Schaefer’s got a way of making you want to eat and drink almost constantly; everything she writes about sounds delicious. She’s also got a nice light hand with the tone and a knack for creating “real” girls. I hope there will be a sequel because I’d like to know what happens to Annie, Zoe and Genna next.

I would hand this to girls who loved THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB, first and foremost, and we had a lot of those at our shop. Man, did we sell a ton of that book, and I hear the sequel’s doing well there too (I’ve got it on request from the library). But even though the girls in TEASHOP are older than the girls in MDBC, I think it’s a similar audience.

I’m in love with the cover, too – look at that totally adorable, normal looking girl. She’s not wearing heavy makeup or dressed like she’s 18. She’s a normal size. I am in love with her and in love with the cover – good colors, good font, good package. Simon usually does a nice job and this is no exception – whoever did the art direction/cover on this one deserves a pat on the back.

My only quibble is that the author’s website only links to Amazon as a source for purchasing the book. Since the main plotline of the book involves Annie trying to save her aunt’s independent teashop from being run out of town by the big corporate chain, it would be nice if Schaefer linked to Indiebound or Powell’s. The book also mentions Annie going to Barnes and Noble, but I’m told that the reference has been changed to an independent name, which is nice – the book sends a good message about shopping locally and I’d like to see that carried through some of the marketing as well as through the book itself.