Aside from some overly didactic dialogue, kids will relate to Sam and her journal, and the characters and themes offer much...
Plotlines abound, including kidnapping and catching crooks, in Adelman’s work of fiction for chapter-book and middle-grade readers.
Sam, 13, attends middle school in Seattle. She’s on the basketball team, participates in school plays and volunteers at the local community center. She has Down syndrome, which she doesn’t seem concerned about. That she’s an uber-active young teen with developmental differences isn’t hard to swallow; the suburban shuffle from one organized activity to another will ring true for most kids. Unfortunately, some of the dialogue and descriptions won’t, such as when, after a loss, Sam’s basketball coach blandly asserts, “These kids make a great team and they’ll win other games.” Fortunately, the adults are relegated to supporting roles in Sam’s life. Via her diary entries and conversations, readers learn that Sam looks forward to a visit from her Uncle Alex, who is serving in Iraq. Although she’s counting the days until he arrives, she has plenty to do in the meantime. While volunteering at the community center, she grows fond of Michael, a soldier who returned from combat in Iraq after suffering a traumatic brain injury. Sam also encounters some rough characters at the community center. Although she recognizes they’re similar to the bullies at her school, she also realizes they’re more dangerous. When she and her 9-year-old brother, John, notice that the shady guys showed up about the same time the center’s cash donations disappeared, they hatch a plan to catch the thief, using John’s toy spy gear. Then Michael is kidnapped. Sam finds it hard to leave such worries to the police and other authorities. While the ending wraps up a little too neatly, this ambitious book for children hits the mark more often than not. There’s a lot to like about a mystery/adventure for preteens that takes on bullying, disabilities and a girl’s growing need for independence, and Adelman manages to weave each of those topics into a compelling story for young readers.
Aside from some overly didactic dialogue, kids will relate to Sam and her journal, and the characters and themes offer much to consider.Pub Date: May 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-1468126624
Page Count: 152
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series.
An orphaned street urchin is recruited into an elite school for thieves.
In an alternate world where France is the dominant world power, 13-year-old Tom Morgan has had to scrimp, starve, and steal on the streets of London to survive. Born into a workhouse, he doesn’t know anything about his father, while his mother may have been from North Africa. One thing he does know is the sort of cruelty that awaits the poor who are sent to the workhouse, and he’s determined not to go back. But when their camp is raided and his friends are captured by workhouse agents, the only thing Tom can think of is how to get them out. Enter the Corsair, a cunning and mysterious man with a proposition: He wants to recruit Tom into Beaufort’s School for Deceptive Arts. From nabbing treasures to forging identity papers, Beaufort’s promises to teach Tom everything he needs to know to become a Shadow Thief and a member of the Shadow League, the secret global organization that helps keep the world’s political power in balance. But Beaufort’s has its own rules and secrets, and if Tom is to survive long enough to help his friends, he’ll need to figure them out quickly. Clever and gripping, this fast-paced boarding school story will appeal to fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society and Spy School series.
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665982283
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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