A worthwhile if occasionally clumsy children’s mystery for kids and tweens.
In Stim’s (Ivan the Not-So-Terrible, 2013, etc.) latest kids’ book, a 15-year-old thief, a torched houseboat and phone calls from herself are the latest puzzles facing a sharp 12-year-old girl.
Mary Frances “Frankie” Jackson is living for the summer on a Sausalito houseboat with her aunt Roxy (the relationship and Roxy’s surname aren’t made clear in this book, the third in the series). Frankie enjoys her life in California—things got a little dicey back in her native New Jersey—and the wonderfully colorful cast of characters living on the dock. Things get muddled when street-smart teenager Stacy Jones tries to scam donations and steal valuables from dock residents. Afraid “Stacy Lacey”—a star pitcher with a murky back story—will get her unjustly mixed up in another criminal case, Frankie and her K9-dropout German shepherd, Butch, track down the teen. After recovering a stolen pin, Frankie enlists Stacy to partner with her in a pitching contest tied to the reality show that followed a baseball star to Sausalito. Giants left fielder Ricky “The Chipmunk” Chimunsky plans to fill a berth on the dock with a mammoth houseboat for his supermodel girlfriend, upsetting the residents. That situation gets complicated when the existing houseboat at the berth suspiciously burns up in a fire; bizarrely, a caller claiming to be Frankie is the one who alerts her. Unfortunately, Frankie seems to solve little of this swirl of Marin County mystery, because other characters handle the big issues, as if the Hardy Boys did all the detecting but a chum actually cracked the case. This isn’t the narrative’s only misstep. Frankie’s constant references to her boat as a “house-boot”—an inside joke referencing Roxy’s French accent—get cloying quickly. Frankie also dots her narration with charming but inane court-ordered essays on what she’s learned, which do little to advance the plot. Despite these issues, the book features believable, amusingly insightful narration by its 12-year-old star, and it balances its drama—including youth in dangerous situations—perfectly between having a bite and being appropriate for young readers. Stim also handles the reality show well despite it feeling a little gimmicky; then again, those things are ubiquitous these days.
A worthwhile if occasionally clumsy children’s mystery for kids and tweens.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988809659
Page Count: 308
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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