An enjoyable paranormal mystery imbued with social commentary.
Three middle school social outcasts find hidden clues to an unsolved mystery during a field trip to an abandoned prison.
A school field trip takes a group of seventh graders to an island prison that hasn’t been visited in over 50 years. Three of them—White soccer player Tori, Korean American aspiring horror filmmaker Marvin, and anxious Black science buff Noah—decide to stay behind on Raven Island instead of returning with their class. They investigate a 1972 prison break by three inmates while waiting for the ferry to return the following morning. Also involved in their quest are Ms. Chavez, the owner of the island and daughter of the prison’s last warden; some resident ravens; and a few ghosts that the kids can see—but that are not visible to the host of a ghost-hunting TV show who is also present on the island. Complicating matters is the discovery of a dead body. There is an overall tone of real and imagined horror throughout. The topics of excessively harsh sentencing, inhumane treatment of prisoners, and profiteering by the prison system are woven into the story. The island itself, reluctant to release its secrets or people, is spookily personified: Trees whisper to the three friends, plants attack them, and the passage of time seems to shift. Horror devices and skillful pacing are employed to great effect.
An enjoyable paranormal mystery imbued with social commentary. (author’s note, resources) (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-40463-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An environmental mystery featuring lots of clever detecting, a bit of danger, and real felonies to investigate.
Toxic waste dumped in the Everglades gives a quartet of middle school sleuths their first case.
Leading Carl Hiaasen fans over familiar ground, Ponti pitches 12-year-old Alex Sherlock and his 13-year-old sister, Zoe, with school friends Lina and Yadi as sidekicks, into a summer caper. It all begins with the hunt for a supposed fortune buried decades ago by Al Capone, culminates in a narrow escape from an exploding yacht, and ultimately exposes a smooth-talking bad actor shady enough to bring in even federal authorities. As the kids’ live-in Grandpa, a retired investigative reporter, delivers pointers on how to conduct interviews and sift evidence while grandly driving them around South Florida in his classic Cadillac, Roberta, the budding detectives display sharp wits, eyes, and negotiating skills. The last come in particularly useful when they’re dealing with their lawyer…who’s also their mom. Both the plot and the chain of evidence take logical courses, and since Dad is a marine biologist and Lina’s a recent transplant from Wyoming, Ponti is able to use their dialogue to highlight the local culture and larger ecological issues. Main characters present white, apart from tech wiz Yadi, who is cued Latine.
An environmental mystery featuring lots of clever detecting, a bit of danger, and real felonies to investigate. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781665932530
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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