bookshelf

THE MYSTERIOUS PHONE CALL

Name: THE MYSTERIOUS PHONE CALL
Author: Brian O'Dell
ISBN: 978-1-73267-232-1

From the Mud Street Misfits Adventure series , Vol. 2

by Brian O'Dell and Beth Lauderdale ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 28, 2019

A sweet, supernatural middle grade tale that’s grounded by memorable characters.

bookshelf

In O’Dell and Lauderdale’s (The Girl in the Blue Tie-Dye Shirt, 2018) middle grade sequel, the Mud Street Misfits take on their town’s mayor in order to save a treasured building.

Preteen Sarah Barrett was left on the steps of the Santa Monica Public Library as an infant. Now she lives in small-town Ozark, Missouri with her adoptive parents, Heather and Rachel, and her younger stepbrother, David. She and David are members of the Mud Street Misfits, along with their friends Connor Harrison and Liam and Molly MacLeod. Recently, Liam hit his head and developed psychic powers; the Misfits’ ensuing adventure brought them inside the abandoned Ozark Orpheum, which hosted live music for decades but now lies in decay. Sarah has learned that Rachel is joining a Chicago law firm, which is devastating news; the family has already moved frequently, and Ozark is the first place that truly felt like home to her. After discovering that Ozark’s Mayor Scott plans to demolish the Orpheum in just two weeks, Sarah looks into how to get the building certified as a historic site, due to its age, condition, and significance. The kids sneak back into the Orpheum to find something that will convince City Hall to reconsider. In the building’s attic, they find a steamer trunk full of costumes, and, strangely, a black rotary phone that provides Liam with psychic visions—and later does something else that’s unexpected. With the help of writer Steve Lewis, who once wrote about the Orpheum for The Ozark Trail magazine, and Cora, their psychic friend and crystal expert, can the Misfits save a building that’s full of powerful memories? O’Dell and Lauderdale again depict the passionate moral clarity of youth, which can be challenging to carry into adulthood. Sarah’s melancholy character and resulting motivations give her a compelling narrative arc: She wants to save the Orpheum because she can’t save her place within the Misfits. At one point, she feels “as if she had no physical substance and was suspended above the earth by a tenuous thread”; music helps her, however, as it can “take her to another world.” Her loving parents, Rachel and Heather, who are “committed to each other and to creating a family,” are portrayed with matter-of-fact positivity. The author again supplies his young target audience with tastes of both science and spirituality, as when Cora, in a discussion of ghosts, quotes Albert Einstein, notes that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed.” The Hindu concept of chakras—energy centers in the body—comes up in a scene in Cora’s crystal shop; the proprietor offers Sarah a piece of kyanite, which she says will help relieve stress in the girl’s throat chakra, allowing her to “speak [her] truth with clarity.” This installment focuses mainly on Sarah, as the previous one did on Liam and Connor, giving the series a buoyantly episodic feel, and Ozark, with its haunted corners and inquisitive Misfits, continues to be a wonderful place to visit.

A sweet, supernatural middle grade tale that’s grounded by memorable characters.

Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-73267-232-1

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Mud Street Misfits, LLC

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
The Snowy Day Is NYC Library’s Most Popular Book

- SEEN & HEARD
ALA Releases List of 2020’s Most Challenged Books

- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

bookshelf

DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

bookshelf

Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).