Hmm. I know I loved the few of these Miss P. books that were available to me as a child. And I know the author of this, shall we call it, 'tribute,' loved her books too. But darned if I can remember any details about them, except that I learned some science from each and I've always loved to do that. And the difficulty is, that this book assumes the reader already has some familiarity with the original set by MacGregor.

However, by the end of the book, I figured out a few things. Miss Pickerell loves animals. She also loves tradition and peace & quiet. However, for the sake of animals (and, probably for the sake of other causes, over the many books in the series), she is quietly courageous and winds up going on major adventures.

Her adventures require her to be both physically strong and mentally agile - for example in this adventure she has to climb a mountain, learn some details about the issues of endangered species, and (gasp!) use modern technology. Her nieces and nephews probably feature in most of the books, and we probably would get to know them better if we read more stories. But she, and the Mayor, and other adult townspeople, are the main characters here, and probably in most books.

I do believe this is worth four stars if read as part of the series, and so that's what I'm rating it. But to be perfectly frank, as a story unto itself, I have to say I enjoyed it somewhere between 3 and 3.5. Still, I hope that libraries do not discard these too hastily, and I will try to read more of them. ( )