Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
The Courage Test
James Preller · 2016
84/100
👍 Worth It
James Preller pulls off something genuinely difficult: a middle-grade adventure that is also an honest emotional reckoning with divorce and parental illness, woven through with Lewis and Clark history that actually enriches the story. The Booklist starred review and Junior Library Guild selection are well-earned signals. Parents should be ready to talk about the cancer subplot with younger readers, but that conversation is exactly what the book is designed to invite.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety85
Substance / usefulness86
Craft & writing88
Originality78
Evidence & accuracy85
Hype vs delivers80
Age-fit88
👁 Human-eye gut-check86
Penny’s verdict84
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