Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Twelve-year-old Taylor is discombobulated by her family's move to a farm. A friend devises TEFF (Taylor Escapes From Farm), a plan in which Taylor acts out to convince her parents that moving was a mistake. Meanwhile, readers learn interesting, authentic details about everything from spinning wool to birthing lambs. Plucky Taylor, though lightly sarcastic, never comes off as unlikable or bratty.

School Library Journal (Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2011)

Gr 4-7 Moving can be a traumatic experience for kids of any age but when Taylor McNamara's parents move from Minneapolis to a small rural area to fulfill their dream of owning a farm filled with sheep, chickens, and goats, the 12-year-old is miserable. She feels deprived of weekends at the Mall of America and, worse yet, there's no cable television. Barn Boot Blues offers a humorous look at what it takes to fit in at a new school and make new friends. Taylor's sense of humor helps her out when she almost misses the bus on the first day of school and ends up wearing her barn boots all day, which draws snickers from students and lands her the nickname of "Boots." She learns to take an umbrella when gathering eggs to avoid another chicken-poop-in-the-hair incident and excels at spinning yarn, especially when it allows her to watch her favorite television program. While the story line is a bit slow to develop and the responsibility that Taylor's parents thrust upon her seems a bit much for someone who has never lived on a farm before, the girl's sarcastic wit gets her through most situations and eventually helps her and her family maintain a united front when times get tough. It's Taylor's ability to rise to a challenge and understand the meaning of friendship that turns this book back on course. Cheryl Ashton, Amherst Public Library, OH

Kirkus Reviews

City girl or farm girl, which will Taylor choose to be? Or does she have a choice? Twelve-year-old Taylor's parents have uprooted her from her perfectly comfortable life in Minneapolis and planted her on a farm to raise chickens, ducks, goats and sheep. She takes on many responsibilities and chores, all presenting their own levels of grossness, and manages, mostly, to attack them with ingenuity, determination and some hilarity. But she describes herself as thoroughly discombobulated as she tries to adjust to a new school and this new, alien way of life. Unable to voice her unhappiness to her parents, she plots to sabotage her school grades and behavior to get their attention, and convince them to return to the city. Taylor tells her own story with humor and honesty, as she comes to terms with the changes in her environment and in herself. The peripheral characters are not as well drawn, however, especially her parents, who seem to make precipitous, impulsive, life-changing decisions with good intentions but little else. The other children are one dimensional as well; there's a manipulative town girl, a teasing, irritating boy and a kindhearted farm girl. Only Taylor's engaging, breezy narration lifts the whole above the banal. Pleasant, but it's all been done before. (Fiction. 10-14)