adventure

‘The Sherlock Society: Hurricane Heist’ by James Ponti is a fabulous sequel

/ Pamela Kramer

“Hurricane Heist” is the second book in James Ponti’s new detective series, “The Sherlock Society.” This very clever middle grade series features the first person narrator Alex Sherlock, his two best friends Yadi and Lina, his sister Zoe, and his grandfather, a retired journalist. They live in South Florida in Coconut Grove and since the first book, have been looking for Al Capone’s missing Florida treasure — a stash of money that was secreted somewhere in Southern Florida and never found.

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‘The Yellow Bus’ by Loren Long is both a beautifully illustrated and deeply thoughtful picture book (discussion questions included)

/ Pamela Kramer

Legions of children, teachers, librarians, and parents love picture books by Loren Long for the fabulous stories, the colorful, clever illustrations, and the heartwarming messages each contains. “The Yellow Bus,” his latest creation, is no different. This time the illustrations are ingeniously created so that the yellow bus, the star of the story, is the only thing in the story that has color. Everything else is drawn in black and white and grey.

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‘Mouse & His Dog: A Dogtown Book’ by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko is the second book in this heartwarming series about friendship, love, rescue dogs, and a mouse

/ Pamela Kramer

“Mouse & His Dog” by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko follows “Dogtown” in the adventures of dogs at a private dog shelter called, of course, Dogtown, as narrated by the mouse who lives there. This mouse loves the dogs in Dogtown, and he desperately tries to find them homes before they end up on “the list.” In this beautifully written, touching novel that is both an ode to the joy of loving dogs and a plea to rescue one, we meet several dogs who are typical of dogs we might really meet in a shelter.

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‘The Sherlock Society’ by James Ponti is the first novel in a fabulous new middle grade mystery series

/ Pamela Kramer

James Ponti, a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning children’s author, has just released the first book in a new series, “The Sherlock Society.” Those who have enjoyed his “CIty Spies” series will devour this new series, which is set in Ponti’s home state of Florida. The new series features a brother and sister, Alex and Zoe Sherlock, who start a detective agency to make extra money one summer. Helping them are two of Alex’s friends, Lina and Yadi.

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‘My Vampire vs. Your Werewolf’ by Paul Tobin gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from my grandson

/ Pamela Kramer

This review will be short and sweet. “My Vampire vs Your Werewolf” by Paul Tobin is a middle grade chapter book about, no surprise here, vampires and werewolves. My grandson, an avid reader and lover of the horror genre, devoured this in one sitting. It’s a clever concept in which an organization called the Crafters Guild sends children out to find lonely monsters and get them in shape for fighting. Apparently monsters like to fight each other.

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A Devil of a Novel by Scott Phillips

/ Pamela Kramer

The title and cover art of Scott Phillips’ new novel, “The Devil Raises His Own,” suggest that the reader is about to embark on another Phillips noir novel. At the bottom of the scene on the cover is a smoking pistol belching a black miasma that envelops a night-time view of a large, perhaps crime-ridden city neighborhood. But by the time we arrive at chapter two, barely six pages in, we suspect that the cover artist and the novelist are playing tricks on us.

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‘Life, Loss, and Puffins’ by Catherine Ryan Hyde is a coming of age novel about the family we find

/ Pamela Kramer / 1 Comment

In many of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novels, journeys play a special part in terms of shaping and changing the main character or characters. Her latest novel is “Life, Loss, and Puffins,” and the protagonist, a “freakishly smart” thirteen year old and her new best friend Gabriel go on an adventure that changes their lives. Ru’s full name is Rumaki, because her mother thought it was the name of a famous Japanese warrior or philosopher. Unfortunately, it’s the name of an appetizer made from chicken liver, water chestnuts, and bacon, and it’s a name that Ru has been saddled with. In a manner of speaking, this misnomer is emblematic of Ru’s life, a life in which most of the people around her do not understand her or see her for who she really is. They see a child, but Ru is far from anything resembling a typical youngster.

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‘The Marriage Sabbatical’ by Lian Dolan is an enjoyable light story of marriage and discovery

/ Pamela Kramer

In “The Marriage Sabbatical,” this not-a-romance novel, Lian Dolan introduces Jason and Nicole Elswick, who have been married for almost a quarter of a century. Jason is in publishing, and as he approaches his twenty-five year anniversary with his company, he gets a year sabbatical. Since the death of his best friend, he is determined to fulfill their dream of traveling through Patagonia on motorcycles. He has the whole year planned, with a few months in a small village on the Pacific learning to surf and writing a book at the end of the trip, and before he and Nicole meet their children, two college students who are traveling abroad for the school year.

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‘Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II’ by Adam Gidwitz is both charming and chilling

/ Pamela Kramer

Adam Gidwitz is a much loved children’s author whose fabulous tales have taken readers young and old from Grimm’s fairy tales (“A Tale Dark and Grimm“) to the Inquisition (“The Inquisitor’s Tale“) and now to WWII in “Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II.” This historical fiction also contains Gidwitz’s trademark fantasy twist with two mythical creatures who accompany main character Max as he travels from Berlin to London as part of the Kindertransport, which took Jewish children from Germany to countries where they stayed in foster homes until the end of the war.

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Percival Everett: “James,” Jim, and by the way, Huckleberry Finn

/ Pamela Kramer

Percival Everett’s brilliant novel, “James,” is a significant achievement, almost as important, perhaps, for what it is not, as much as for what it certainly is. It is not simply a “reimagining” of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Nor is it simply an “updating” or “retelling” of Twain’s magnificent contribution to American literature. It is, instead, a moving, fiery, anger-inducing, sad, and occasionally humorous account of a slave in 1860 America. That slave, Jim, is a friend of a semi-wild fourteen- or fifteen-year-old ultra-country boy named Huck.

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‘Wrecker’ by Carl Hiaasen is an thrilling, must-read, thoughtful middle grade novel

/ Pamela Kramer

“Wrecker,” is pure Carl Hiaasen with its Key West setting and fabulous action, quirky characters, and clever plot. Carl Hiaasen is known for his novels about Florida, its struggle against pollution and destruction of the land and waters around it, as well as his tongue-in-cheek depiction of people who are oblivious to common sense and basic reasoning skills. This is a book that, in pointing out the racist past of Florida, and Key West in particular, could very well be banned in Hiaasen’s home state of Florida: In this clever and gripping novel, one of the characters actually feels terrible about an ancestor who was a member of the Klu Klux Klan and participated in the lynching of a white man who had dared to enter into a common law marriage with the Black woman he loved.

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‘City Spies: Mission Manhattan’ by James Ponti is the fabulous new middle grade thriller in this exceptional series

/ Pamela Kramer / 1 Comment

Can I just say that I love the “City Spies” series by James Ponti? This latest one, “Mission Manhattan,” is just as exciting and thrilling as the preceding books, and reading them brings me as much pleasure as reading one of my favorite adult spy novels, like Tess Gerritsen’s “The Spy Coast” or even John Scalzi’s “Starter Villain.” While granted, these spy novels are geared for middle grade readers, the plots and the action are every bit as well plotted and gripping as many of that genre written for adults. The major differences are that the books in this series are much quicker reads with spies that are underaged. But they are no less brilliant than any seasoned adult spy.

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