THE DREAM SPIES

Maren is excited to go undercover at summer camp to spy on camp directors who are promising participants lessons in dream-taking and dream-making.

Maren’s Gran-Gran owns a dream shop, and she knows almost everyone who makes dreams. But she’s never heard of camp directors Calvin and Malvin Peppernot and is suspicious. Is it possible that they, like the evil Obscura Gray, whom Maren defeated in The Nightmare Thief (2021), want to use powerful magical dreams for nefarious purposes? Maren, her sister, and Gran-Gran get to work investigating. Alarmingly, the camp staff hand out dreams willy-nilly and seem unconcerned when campers don’t wake up from them. Maren is especially surprised that fellow camper Ivy’s grandmother, who works in the dream shack where campers can buy more dreams, is not worried. That some of the dreams are comically familiar and slightly dangerous makes them all the more creepy, for example, when a few girls dream that they’re hungry caterpillars. As before, Maren is an endearing, plucky sleuth. The pace quickens and things turn more sinister when it becomes clear that there’s a mastermind with nefarious goals. Family and loyalty lie at the center of the story, with Maren’s close-knit community serving to ground and support her. The cast is default White.

A colorful, entertaining romp.