Greetings from Somewhere: a new series of easy chapter books

Author Harper Paris and Little Simon have recently released a new beginning chapter book series, Greetings from Somewhere, which is perfect for those who are graduating from beginning readers like Henry & Mudge or Dr. Seuss and are ready for something a little longer, but not particularly more difficult.  The first book weighs in at 118 pages, with very large font and appealing black and white illustrations on every page.  These appear to be at an easier reading level than a series like Magic Treehouse, and are well suited to children from 7-9, or even younger, if the child is already reading.

The series starts with The Mystery of the Gold Coin.  It revolves around eight-year old twins Ethan and Ella, who when the series opens are less than thrilled when they discover they are about to leave on what their parents are billing as the adventure of a lifetime--traveling around the world with their mother, a travel writer, and their father, who will be home-schooling the twins during their travels.  The twins are more concerned about missing their friends and soccer games.  But just before they're supposed to leave, a special gold coin that was a present from their grandpa disappears--leaving the twins to solve the mystery before they have to leave for the airport.

In the second volume, The Mystery of the Mosaic, the twins and their parents have arrived in Venice, where they can't help but be enchanted by the magical city.  But soon they are faced with another mystery, a missing gondola.  In true kid detective fashion, Ethan and Ella solve another case--no great surprise there!

This is a gentle yet appealing mystery series with no violence, a chance to learn about some exotic locations (future volumes take place in Paris, Beijing, and Africa) and a little foreign vocabulary (a glossary of foreign words is included).  Although I was a bit skeptical of the way the 8-year old twins took off on their own (no parents in the way) in Venice to solve a mystery, I don't think that will bother the young readers who are the target audience for these books.

An excerpt from the series can be found at http://pages.simonandschuster.com/greetings-from-somewhere, as can related games and activities and information on upcoming releases in the series.

Disclosure:  Review copies provided by publisher.

Book Review: mister death's blue-eyed girls, by Mary Downing Hahn (Clarion Books, 2012) (

Recommended for ages 12 and up.


Release date:  April 17, 2012

It's June, 1956, and school's just about out for the summer. Teenage Nora and her friends have a party with a few boys, dance, hang out and drink too many beers. But none of them can imagine that their lives are about to change forever because of a shocking murder. 

The next day, the bodies of two of the girls from Nora's group, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, are found shot to death in the woods near their house. Everyone thinks that Buddy, Cheryl's ex-boyfriend, who looks like an imitation of James Dean, must be guilty of the brutal crime. But when no conclusive evidence is uncovered, he's released by the police, although everyone in the town still assumes he did it, and worse yet, that he got away with it. 

This excellent mystery, written from the point of view of Nora, her friend Ellie, Buddy, and the actual guilty murderer, takes place in a time that seems so innocent now--a time of listening to Elvis records with your girlfriends, worrying what would happen if a boy touched your knee, and having ice cream sodas at the neighborhood drugstore.  But with the murders life changed for all the teens in the story. 

What would it be like to have your friends murdered, begin to question not only your Catholic faith, but your very belief in God, and not know how to go on living? And what if everyone in town thought you were a murderer? This is different from other Mary Downing Hahn books I've read--not a ghost story, but a story nonetheless of how the dead can haunt us in other ways. It's a coming-of-age story as well as a mystery and a real page turner.  Highly recommended. 

Note: the novel is inspired by a similar crime which took place when the author was a teen; the author knew both girls who were the victims and remembers vividly being at a friend's house when the bodies were discovered.  She writes in an afterword that the event has haunted her for years.

Book Review: City of Orphans, by Avi (Simon & Schuster, 2011)

Recommended for ages 10-14.

Avi, Newbery award-winning author of more than 60 novels for children and teens, turns once again to historical fiction in his newest novel, set in 1893 New York City.  His hero, thirteen-year old Maks, makes a bit of money as a newsboy to help his impoverished immigrant family on the lower East Side.  When his older sister, Emma, who works as a maid at the swank Waldorf-Astoria hotel, is falsely accused of theft and imprisoned in the city prison ominously called the Tombs, Maks teams up with a homeless girl, Willa, to try to clear his sister's name and free her from jail.  At the same time, he has to avoid landing in the clutches of the Plug Ugly gang, whose boss is trying to take control of all the newsies.  Confronted with a mystery whodunit, Maks enlists the help of a dying lawyer to find the true culprit of the theft at the hotel.

Avi knows how to spin a convincing tale, and this book is no exception.  In his afterword, he notes that the book is his attempt to "catch a small bit of how New York City kids lived at the end of the nineteenth century."  He's particularly adept at evoking the sounds, smells, and look of tenement life in New York, with its mix of poor immigrants from many nations.  This poverty contrasts with the swank brand-new Waldorf Astoria, where Maks winds up working under cover to try to clear his sister's name.   Avi uses a very colloquial voice to tell the story, with the narrator speaking directly to the reader.  While I understand the use of a strong point of view, I was irritated by the way he tries to evoke the dialect of the time, with plenty of dropped letters, i.e. "'cause' instead of "because", 'bout' instead of "about," 'em' instead of "them," etc.

Avi includes an Author's Note with historical details about the period, as well as suggestions for further reading and viewing.

City of Orphans is definitely worth reading, and will be enjoyed by young people who like a historical mystery, but it would not be one of my favorites among Avi's works.

Book Review: Johnny Swanson, by Eleanor Updale (David Fickling Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 8-12.


Eleanor Updale, the award-winning author of the popular Montmerancy series, takes us to England in 1929 in her newest historical mystery novel for young people.  Our hero, Johnny Swanson, is an engaging young boy who finds himself mixed up in a murder mystery--and his own mother is the suspected murderer!  Johnny's sure as can be that she's not guilty, but no one will believe him and the police seem to have already made up their mind.  Can Johnny save her before it's too late?

There seem to be three interrelated stories going on in this novel--the above-mentioned murder mystery, the tuberculosis epidemic in England, and Johnny's many schemes to make money to help out his mother.  Johnny is enticed by a newspaper advertisement promising the "secret of instant height," just what he needs to stop the bullying at school because of his small stature.  When he discovers the ad is a hoax, he decides he can play that game also, and soon is concocting schemes to put advertisements in various publications and collecting small sums of money for bogus answers to problems.  As you might imagine, Johnny becomes hopelessly entangled in a comical web of lies around his business, this part of the story very much reminded me of the classic Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald that I enjoyed as a child.  

At the same time, a TB outbreak is plaguing England, and Johnny's neighbor, Dr. Langford, just might be working on a secret vaccine for the disease.  This work turns out to be dangerous, indeed--for Dr. Langford and maybe for Johnny too, as he learns more than he should know about the undercover work.

Johnny makes an appealing boy detective--a character who's far from perfect, but whose good intentions shine through as he works to help his mother, first through his financial schemes, and then to save her from the hangman's noose.  The author combines humor and suspense--a winning combination for young mystery fans.  Perhaps we will see more adventures of Johnny Swanson in the future!

Disclosure:  ARC received from publisher.

Book Review: Death Cloud: Young Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins, by Andrew Lane (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011)

Recommended for 10 and up.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created, and the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories remain popular, as do many spin-offs in both books and film for adults and young people. A new series by British writer Andrew Lane imagines Sherlock as a fourteen-year old boy solving his first murder mysteries. The first volume in this series, Death Cloud, starts off a bit slowly but soon turns into an intriguing murder mystery.

Andrew Lane writes that his intention with this series is "to find out what Sherlock was like before Arthur Conan Doyle first introduced him to the world. What sort of teenager was he? Where did he go to school, and who were his friends? Where and when did he learn the skills that he displayed later in life – the logical mind, the boxing and sword-fighting, the love of music and of playing the violin? What did he study at university? When (if ever) did he travel abroad? What scared him and who, if anyone, did he love?" Arthur Conan Doyle, notes Lane, gave away little about Sherlock's youth in his published short stories and novels, except a few hints here and there, therefore giving Lane considerable creative license to create the early years for this beloved character.

Set in 1868, when our hero is fourteen, our novel opens with Sherlock at boarding school.  But instead of going home for his summer vacation, he finds out from his brother Mycroft that their father has been posted to India, their mother is "unwell," and Sherlock will have to spend the summer with his peculiar aunt and uncle--who he's never even met--in Hampshire. The only bright note seems to be that the food is better than at school.

But things won't be boring for long, as Sherlock makes friends with a local boy, Matty, who's been witness to a strange mysterious smoke and a dead body covered in boils. Has the plague come back? Matty serves as a younger version of Watson in this story, assisting Sherlock with his investigations. Sherlock is also helped by his American tutor and his feisty and independent daughter Virginia, Sherlock is soon involved with fire, kidnapping, espionage, and murder. Will his powers of deduction help him solve his first murder, while uncovering an evil plot to bring down the British Empire? (this seems more James Bond to me than Sherlock Holmes, but perhaps that's just a contemporary perspective!)

I should disclose that I have not read any of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but that may be the case as well with the intended audience for this series, teens and tweens.  This new series is not the first about Holmes to be aimed at teen readers, but is the first such series endorsed by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. (A different series for teens,the award-winning The Boy Sherlock Holmes, by Shane Peacock, was first published in 2007 by Canadian publisher Tundra Press and has four volumes to date.  I have not read any of the titles in that series but it would be interesting to compare and contrast how both authors imagine Sherlock as a youth).  And then of course we have the acclaimed Enola Holmes mystery series by Nancy Springer, concentrating on Sherlocks' much-younger sister, Enola, a talented detective in her own right. 

Lane's series offers plenty of action, as well as laying the ground work for Holmes' later powers of deductive reasoning (we can see the beginnings of his talents in this book).  It's a good entree into the Victorian stories for younger readers, and may get them interested in exploring the originals. 

An interview with Andrew Lane about this series appears at The Book Zone for Boys.

The British website for the series can be found at youngsherlock.com, and includes information on the next volume in this series, Red Leech, as well as a book trailer.

Death Cloud was recently picked as a Spring 2011 Kids' Indie Next choice from Indiebound.org.

Disclosure:  Review copy provided by publisher.

Book Review: mister death's blue-eyed girls, by Mary Downing Hahn (Clarion Books, 2012)

Release date:  April 17, 2012


Recommended:  Ages 12 and up


It's June, 1956, and school's just about out for the summer.  Teenage Nora and her friends have a party with a few boys, dance, hang out and drink too many beers.  But none of them can imagine that their lives are about to change forever.

The next day, the bodies of two of the girls, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, are found shot to death in the woods near their house.  Everyone thinks that Buddy, Cheryl's ex-boyfriend, who's looks like an imitation of James Dean, must be guilty.  But when no evidence is uncovered, he's released, although everyone in the town still assumes he did it.  Nora is the only one who seems to think someone else is guilty--and the murderer is still out there.  Who's to blame for this brutal crime...and will he wind up going unpunished?

This excellent mystery, written from varying points of view, including Nora, her friend Ellie, Buddy, and the actual guilty murderer, takes place in a time that seems so innocent now--a time of listening to Elvis records, worrying what would happen if a boy touched your knee, having ice cream sodas at the neighborhood drugstore.  But we see how one event makes everything change for all the teens in the story.  What would it be like to have your friends murdered, begin to question your Catholic faith, and not know how to go on living?  And what if everyone in town thought you were a murderer?  This is different from other Mary Downing Hahn books I've read--not a ghost story, but a story nonetheless of how the dead can haunt us in other ways.  Highly recommended.  Note:  the novel is inspired by a real crime which took place when the author was a teen, and has haunted her for years.