The head news editor is 11 years old, the masthead designer likes to wear ruffles, and the newsroom is actually a barn that’s home to a goat named Stuff. Welcome to the first meeting of the Newspaper Club.
Nellie misses her old life in the city, where her parents worked at a fast-paced newspaper. Now her father is away in Japan, and Nellie and her mom have moved to the small town of Bear Creek, where nothing ever happens—or so it seems. The proprietor of the local ice cream parlor, where flavors like Merry Marmalade and Cheery Chocolate Cream abound, is always sad, and the sole newspaper in town is about to shutter its doors. When Bear Creek Park, the only place in town where Nellie gets good reception to talk to her father, closes due to a series of unexplained nuisances, Nellie knows what she has to do. The time has come to start her own newspaper, staffed entirely by cub reporters (that’s newspaper-speak for new journalists) like herself, along with local kids who might just become her new friends.
Beth Vrabel’s The Newspaper Club is a mystery and a friendship story rolled into one; at its climax, both combine for a conclusion that’s remarkably profound. It’s also an affectionate account of the newspaper business, complete with a glossary of newspaper terms for budding cub reporters.
