Codebreakers and mystery fans will want to read this fun adventure, tout de suite.
While visiting family in Paris, a 12-year-old from New Jersey embarks on a treasure hunt to find her grandmother’s missing Matisse—and help save her antiques shop.
Red-haired mathlete Bea’s parents have sent her to stay with Aunt Juliette, a busy journalist, but Bea is stuck at home with little to do, until someone slips a mysterious note containing a riddle under their apartment door. Methodical Bea and her spontaneous 13-year-old cousin, Céline, work together to solve the clues, hoping they’ll lead to the family’s treasured Matisse sketch, which has gone missing from their grandmother Mamie’s shop, the House of Found Objects. The precious artwork was collateral for the loan Mamie needed to carry out much-needed repairs; without it, the landlord could force her out. As the girls visit Parisian landmarks, they become close, discuss why their dads (who are brothers) are feuding, and break rules in the name of saving Mamie’s shop. Through their adventures, Bea gains the courage to reveal a truth to her parents that she’d been covering up out of fear of disappointing them and uncertainty over what she really wanted. The metamorphosis of the cousins’ relationship, which starts off prickly and softens into mutual respect and affection, is realistic and relatable, and the explanation behind the mysterious notes is a pleasant surprise. The family is cued white.
Codebreakers and mystery fans will want to read this fun adventure, tout de suite. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781665967174
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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