A fun, socially conscious mystery that continues to take the series in new directions.
A vacation turns into another mystery for young animal lovers–turned–amateur sleuths.
Having solved previous mysteries near her home in Dorset, England, 12-year-old Kat Wolfe is ready for a vacation across the pond. So is her overworked veterinarian mother. Together they are set to accompany Kat’s best friend, 13-year-old Harper Lamb, and her paleontologist father on a trip to New York’s Adirondack Mountains. When unexpected events, including a nor’easter, converge in this third stand-alone installment of the series, Kat and Harper find themselves parentless and snowed in for several days. At first the pair is intrigued by a recent news event—a botched heist of a diamond necklace—but when they learn that the key witness, Riley, is not only a girl Kat met at a rest stop en route to the Adirondacks, but also has disappeared in the area, Kat and Harper set out to find her. Once again, they combine savvy computer talent, keen observation, and cleverness with animals in a lighthearted adventure with just the right amount of danger. This time the girls must also test their survival skills amid a pack of huskies, assorted wild animals, and blizzard conditions. Most notably, their sleuthing spotlights biases around the types of individuals society often overlooks. Whiteness is the default; Harper’s late mother was Cuban.
A fun, socially conscious mystery that continues to take the series in new directions. (Mystery. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-30964-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t.
Brothers, one neurodivergent, team up to shoot baskets and find a thief.
With the coach spit-bellowing at him to play better or get out, basketball tryouts are such a disaster for 11-year-old Green that he pelts out of the gym—becoming the chief suspect to everyone except his fiercely protective older brother, Cedar, when a valuable ring vanishes from the coach’s office. Used to being misunderstood, Green is less affected by the assumption of his guilt than Cedar, whose violent reactions risk his suspension. Switching narrative duties in alternating first-person chapters, the brothers join forces to search for clues to the real thief—amassing notes, eliminating possibilities (only with reluctance does Green discard Ringwraiths from his exhaustive list of possible perps), and, on the way to an ingenious denouement, discovering several schoolmates and grown-ups who, like Cedar, see Green as his own unique self, not just another “special needs” kid. In an author’s note, King writes that he based his title characters on family members, adding an element of conviction to his portrayals of Green as a smart, unathletic tween with a wry sense of humor and of Cedar’s attachment to him as founded in real affection, not just duty. Ultimately, the author finds positive qualities to accentuate in most of the rest of the cast too, ending on a tide of apologies and fence-mendings. Cedar and Green default to White.
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-261-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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