Codebreakers and mystery fans will want to read this fun adventure, tout de suite.
While visiting family in Paris, a 12-year-old from New Jersey embarks on a treasure hunt to find her grandmother’s missing Matisse—and help save her antiques shop.
Red-haired mathlete Bea’s parents have sent her to stay with Aunt Juliette, a busy journalist, but Bea is stuck at home with little to do, until someone slips a mysterious note containing a riddle under their apartment door. Methodical Bea and her spontaneous 13-year-old cousin, Céline, work together to solve the clues, hoping they’ll lead to the family’s treasured Matisse sketch, which has gone missing from their grandmother Mamie’s shop, the House of Found Objects. The precious artwork was collateral for the loan Mamie needed to carry out much-needed repairs; without it, the landlord could force her out. As the girls visit Parisian landmarks, they become close, discuss why their dads (who are brothers) are feuding, and break rules in the name of saving Mamie’s shop. Through their adventures, Bea gains the courage to reveal a truth to her parents that she’d been covering up out of fear of disappointing them and uncertainty over what she really wanted. The metamorphosis of the cousins’ relationship, which starts off prickly and softens into mutual respect and affection, is realistic and relatable, and the explanation behind the mysterious notes is a pleasant surprise. The family is cued white.
Codebreakers and mystery fans will want to read this fun adventure, tout de suite. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781665967174
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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