A fun read for any sleuths-in-training.
Join Paloma Marquez as she solves the mystery of Frida Kahlo’s missing peacock ring.
Biracial Paloma Marquez is a 12-year-old half-Mexican, half-white girl from Kansas City, Kansas. Paloma possesses almost no memories of her deceased father but hopes to reconnect with her Mexican heritage during her first trip to his homeland. While staying in the Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico City, Paloma explores Casa Azul, artist Frida Kahlo’s childhood home–turned-museum, and instantly becomes a fan of Frida’s artwork. Paloma is supposed to take Spanish classes and art history classes, but there’s a mystery unfolding in Casa Azul. Kahlo’s peacock ring is missing, and it is imperative that Paloma and her new friends, local siblings Gael and Lizzie, find it before it is too late. But Gael and Lizzie, who pose as Paloma’s Spanish tutors from the university, are not who they seem….Paloma is a fan of fictional teen supersleuth Lulu Pennywhistle, who inspires her to try to solve the mystery of the missing peacock ring. The mystery, while engaging, is not particularly intricate. Readers will have little trouble solving it before Paloma and her friends do, making it more an introduction to the genre than one for readers accustomed to it. Spanish is used throughout the text with translations following almost immediately.
A fun read for any sleuths-in-training. (author’s note) (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-15931-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
A bouquet of quirks, whimsy, sweetness, and magic.
A girl awaiting her destiny must uncover lost treasure to save her home.
Orphan Emma lives above the Boneyard Cafe, her family’s business, right next to the cemetery. She comes from a long line of Wildflowers: the women in her family each experience a Destiny Dream, a specific dream that steers them to extraordinary lives. When it looks as though Emma’s grandmother (Granny Blue, a tattooed retired boxer) will be forced to sell their home, Emma looks for answers in a graveyard legend. The Conductor, a Civil War–era ghost, is said to have left treasure in Blackbird Hollow. With the help of Cody Belle, her trusty best friend, and Earl Chance, a boy newly returned to town and traumatized into muteness after a close encounter with a tornado, and guidance from her own less-than-clear Destiny Dream, Emma uses town lore to hunt for the treasure. Despite ghosts and graves, the story avoids the macabre and instead focuses on the relationships among memory, sadness, and joy, especially as Emma’s still recovering from her mother’s death. The mystery’s as much fun as a treasure hunt should be, and the clues are augmented by magical flowers. Blackbird Hollow is as largely white as might be expected of an Appalachian holler, but the story avoids twee with such details as Granny Blue’s Harley and Emma’s fondness for rock-’n’-roll.
A bouquet of quirks, whimsy, sweetness, and magic. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-55274-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Strong characters grapple with a multitude of issues (a few too many) in this celebration of friendship and the rewards of...
Are there secrets that shouldn’t be revealed?
In this sequel to The Perfect Score (2017), Randi, Natalie, Gavin, Trevor, and Scott are assigned community service for cheating on a standardized test. It’s not really a punishment, as these good-natured students enjoy working in the senior center where they’ve established relationships, and besides, they want to reconcile two of their teachers, a mother and daughter, before it’s too late. As before, narration alternates among the five, and while their characters are well-developed, the various issues are examined lightly. In this case, many are related to secrecy, from budding romance to absentee fathers, familial estrangement, parental marital problems, financial struggle, Alzheimer’s, brain injury, adult illiteracy, immigration, and racism. The last three revolve around Gavin, whose Mexican-immigrant mother is undocumented and who becomes the target of the racist football coach. Aside from biracial Gavin and his mother, the book adheres to the white default. Though handled with kindness and compassion, the sheer abundance of topics results in oversimplification, and every story has a pat ending, which, cumulatively, seems unlikely. Still, the characters shine, the plots are engaging, and the issues are addressed in interesting ways that will provide readers with many perspectives and much to consider.
Strong characters grapple with a multitude of issues (a few too many) in this celebration of friendship and the rewards of volunteer work. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6459-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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