young adult

The 39 Clues: The Dead of Night by Peter Lerangis Review

April 7, 2014 by Daniel Johnston Leave a Comment

Note: This post was originally written in March, 2012.

Recently, Scholastic released the newest book in the explosive The 39 Clues action series, The Dead of Night by Peter Lerangis. This has long been one of my all-time favorite kids series, and I usually finish the book the very day it comes out.

For those who don’t know, The 39 Clues is a series about two kids, Amy (14) and Dan (11) Cahill, who realize they’re part of the most powerful family in the world, the Cahill clan, at their Grandmother Grace’s funeral.

The source of the family’s power is hidden in the form of 39 special clues, which will make whoever finds them the most powerful family in human history. Of course, Amy and Dan aren’t the only ones who want the clues. Their vicious relatives will do anything to find them first.

Click here to find out more about The 39 Clues

Summary

At the end of the last book, Dan got a text from his father (Arthur Trent), who was long presumed to be dead in the fire that destroyed their old home. Dan doesn’t know what to make of it, but he’s worried his dad may be working for the Vespers (or even be Vesper 1).

Atticus Rosenbloom (Dan’s best friend) was kidnapped by the Vespers). Not only is he a super genius, but his mother (now deceased) was a Guardian, a group that has worked with the Madrigal’s to guard secrets for years, although Atticus (11) doesn’t know what it is he’s guarding.

The Vespers are ruled by a Council of Six, headed by Vesper One (whose identity is currently a secret). In each book he sends them on a task, and threatens to kill one of the hostages if they’re late. Because they withheld information from Vesper One, Atticus was kidnapped.

They want information from Atticus, but he doesn’t have it. He only just found out he’s a Guardian in the last few days, but if he doesn’t do something, they’re going to kill him. Will Atticus’s cunning allow Amy and Dan to save him?

This time they travel to Samarkand, Uzbekistan (the oldest city in Central Asia) in search of “stale orbs” at the prodding of Vesper One, bringing Atticus and Jake along to ensure nothing happens to him again.

Amy and Dan are in search of the planetary work of Ulugh Beg meaning “Great Ruler” (his real name was Mīrzā Mohammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrokh), a revolutionary mathematician and astronomer, who had a huge observatory and plotted the course’s of stars and planets extremely precisely.

In addition, just as Lerangis played up the romance between Amy and Ian in Book Three (many avid readers are still on “Team Amian”), he hints at Amy liking Jake-already spurring “Team Jamy.” To compound things, Amy already has a boyfriend, Evan Tolliver, who is working with the Cahills because of his technological knowledge.

Vesper Five is also revealed as Interpol continues their attempts to catch Amy and Dan. Ian goes off the map, in search of a connection between the Vespers and the Lucian’s.

Meanwhile, the hostages try to escape. It was all Phoenix Wizard’s idea, but it backfires heavily.

On the good side, Amy and Dan request a picture, and a reptile crawls in while it’s being taken. Nellie gets a crazy idea that gives the Cahills an idea to where the hostages are being held. And it points straight to where they have tracked Ian.

Amy and Dan learn that McIntyre (their Grandmother’s lawyer and top Madrigal agent) died, and more texts from the man identifying himself as Arthur Trent come in. What is the connection between Amy and Dam’s father and McIntyre perishing? And what is the real identity of the mysterious texter?

Review

I wasn’t actually expecting this book to be too good, but it exceeded my expectations. I thought The Sword Thief was the weakest and worst written of all the books in the series, and I didn’t like The Vipers Nest much either. This book, however, was great.

As usual in the series, this book paints a good historical picture, sprinkling in all sorts of historical details. It’s 190 pages with small pages and average text, so it’s not a long read, meant for ages 8-14.

In this book, the action scenes were pulled off spectacularly, and by no means was the writing too relaxed (the main problem in earlier books by Lerangis). He also managed to retain funny moments, as well. This is definitely more reminiscent of the previous series, and might be the best book in the Cahills vs. Vespers so far.

If you haven’t read the previous books yet, I’d recommend starting with the first book in the Cahills vs Vespers series. If you have, this book is a great addition to the series.

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Zoobreak by Gordon Korman: Review

April 18, 2012 by Daniel Johnston 8 Comments

Zoobreak by Gordon Korman is the second book in the Swindle series, immediately following the wildly popular inaugural book Swindle. In Swindle, the main character Griffin Bing and his best friend, Ben Slovak, stumble upon a 1920 Babe Ruth baseball card while sleeping in an abandoned old house that’s about to be knocked down the next morning. Griffin’s family is having financial problems, and he doesn’t know much about baseball cards, but an original 1920 Babe Ruth in mint condition has to be a lot of money. So they take it a collector to see if it’s worth anything and the guy (S. Wendell Palomino, nicknamed Swindle) lies that it’s just a cheap knockoff and buys it for a pittance. It turns out the card is worth $974,000. What the guy did is unethical, it’s sleazy, but there’s no way to prove he lied. Swindle is going to get away with it.

But Griffin is the Man with the Plan, and he and his team of friends come up with a plan to steal the card back. It’s a very exciting and action-packed book, and one I highly recommend.

So what did Gordon do to follow up on that success? He wrote Zoobreak, a book that expands on the theme of kids fighting against unfairness by taking matters into their own hands. In Swindle, there was a million dollar baseball card. In Zoobreak, there’s Savannah’s pet monkey. Savannah’s animal has been stolen, and she is simply not going to stand for that. To make matters right, Griffin Bing will have to pull off his wildest caper yet.

It is helpful to note that these books can be read in any order. While I would advise beginning with the first book, it is possible to pick up the series anywhere.

Summary

As mentioned above, Savannah’s monkey Cleopatra is stolen. When her dog Luthor goes looking and comes back with a banana, she is certain the animal was kidnapped. But that’s not evidence she can hand over to the police.

To make matters worse, Griffin’s best friend Ben Slovak has narcolepsy, a disease which makes him susceptible to falling asleep at any time of the day. And his condition is getting worse. His parents are getting ready to send him away to a boarding school where he can get help, which would be an obvious catastrophe. Even though Griffin’s dad tries to convince him this is the best thing for Ben, Griffin knows the only reason Ben is going is because he’s a kid, and his parents want him to go. Unfortunately, solving narcolepsy is not one of the skills of The Man with the Plan.

Later on when Savannah locates her monkey at a flying zoo, she is livid. But she has no proof the monkey is hers. Savannah is sure of it, and her prowess with animals is so well-known that most everyone is willing to accept it as true. Still, to get the DNA testing would take a year and cost a lot of money. With the way this zoo treats their animals, there’s reason to suspect Cleo will not even survive that long. But Savannah is forced to leave her monkey there. There’s nothing she can do.

But where other people see closed doors, The Man with the Plan only sees opportunity. That zoo stole Savannah’s monkey, and just like they took back the million dollar baseball card in Swindle, this time they’re taking back something even more valuable. But every good planner knows that no plan can fit every situation, and there’s definitely no way to anticipate the insane situation these characters find themselves in.

Review

This book is 230 pages with large font, written for kids around the age of 9-14. The writing is very good and the book is fast-paced and exciting as is usual with this series.

This is a great book, with Griffin and his friends being firmly committed to taking down the vicious animal thief by whatever means necessary. The team certainly makes good on Griffin’s stated goal of standing up to unfairness in this one.

Click here to buy the book Zoobreak by Gordon Korman. You can also check out my Facebook Page or subscribe via email below for more book reviews.

Framed by Gordon Korman (Swindle Series): Review

April 11, 2012 by Daniel Johnston 4 Comments

Framed is the third edition in the popular Swindle series written by best-selling author Gordon Korman, one of my personal favorite authors. This series features Griffin Bing (the main character) and their gang of friends. In Swindle, the inaugural book, Griffin and his best friend Ben Slovak discover a 1920 Babe Ruth baseball card while sleeping in abandoned old house that’s about to be knocked down. They take it to a collector to see if maybe it will solve Griffin’s financial problems, but the appraiser (S. Wendell Palomino, nicknaked Swindle) tells them that it’s just a cheap knockoff and buys it for $120. But actually, it’s worth $974,000. The only way to get the card is to steal it back.

After Zoobreak (which was an excellent continuation of the spirit of the first book), Framed is a another great entry that keeps the series rolling. In this book, Griffin and his friends go to a middle school with a principal (Dr. Egan; nicknamed Dr. Evil) who hates them because of their past. Griffin wants to get back at him, but after being threatened by the police at the end of Zoobreak, none of the team is eager to try another “plan.”

Note: These books can be read in any order. While I always recommend starting at the beginning, it is by no means necessary, as the plots are independent to each book.

Below is a video trailer for Framed made by Scholastic.

Summary

A 1968 Jets super bowl ring mysteriously disappears from the school. And Griffin’s retainer (which he had previously lost) is found right in the case where the ring used to be! Griffin didn’t do it, but to Dr. Egan and the police the evidence is pretty compelling. Judge Koretsky, who is assigned to his case, also does not buy his story and banishes him to the John F. Kennedy Alternative Education Center (JFK), infamously known as “Jail for Kids.”

Griffin and his friends pick several suspects: Darren Vader (a money lover and a member of the Swindle and Zoobreak teams), Cecilia White (a newspaper columnist who is trying to call attention to Griffin’s plots), Dr. Egan, and a kid by the name of Tony Bartholomew who is related to Art Blankenship (the former owner of the ring) and wants to grab it for himself. But his sting operation doesn’t go as planned, and Judge Koretsky confines him to house arrest.

Griffin is determined to unmask the identity of the scoundrel who’s framing him. Griffin’s parents are distraught as they know he lost his retainer earlier and wasn’t guilty, but begin to lose their patience when Griffin’s sting operations start to land him in more trouble. Griffin’s spirits sink lower as he is kept away from his friends and things are showing no sign of getting better. To smoke out the thief and drop the fallacious charges levied against him it will take a truly spectacular solution.

Review

This book is 234 pages with large font, meant for kids in the age group of 9-14. The writing is very good and the book is fast-paced and exciting as is typical with Korman books.

His books frequently put his characters in interesting situations and in no way fall into any kind of the preachiness that has plagued kids books for so long. Instead Korman prefers smart characters who are never afraid to take action to get whatever it is they want. A recurrent theme of the Swindle series is kids fighting against unfairness by taking matters into their own hands, and this book executes that theme in excellent fashion. It is very fast-paced and exciting, with constant plans and movement from the characters. The ending is a little bit unconnected to the rest of the book, but it is one that you definitely will not be able to guess.

This book captures the excitement of the original book and is highly recommended. Click here to buy the book Framed by Gordon Korman.

Four Book Series for Tweens that are Breathtakingly Awesome

January 30, 2012 by Daniel Johnston 4 Comments

Looking for some great books for tweens? You’ve come to the right place. Here are six awesome books for tweens. A bonus is that these are series, so the total amount of great books you’ll get out of this post is significantly greater than five.

1. The 39 Clues

This is a very exciting action-adventure series. It is still ongoing, and they’re currently on the second series of it, called Cahills vs. Vespers. Edit: Several years later the series has moved on, but new books are continuing to come out. I can only speak for the high quality of the first series and most of the second one.

This is a series about two kids, Dan and Amy Cahill (11 and 14 respectively; although their age changes throughout the series), who find out when their grandmother Grace dies that they’re part of the greatest family the world has ever known. Businessmen, inventors, scientists, mathematicians, politicians, spies; you name it. The source of their power is thirty-nine clues, which over the years have been scattered all over the globe. Whoever finds all thirty-nine clues will be the most powerful person in human history.

So they get a choice at the funeral, two million dollars or a hint to the first clue. For two penniless orphans, two million dollars is a fortune, but, of course, they take the clue.

It turns out there are four branches to the family, and thousands of Cahills, each willing to do anything possible to get the clues first; even kill. They travel all over the world in a search for the clues. Shocking secrets, amazing escapes, and even deaths accompany the hunt. There is also a ton of historical information, so you can learn a lot, too.

Another cool thing about it is that it’s a multi-author series, featuring famous authors such as Rick Riordan, Gordon Korman, Patrick Carman, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and more.

What really sets it apart is that it’s not just the books, but there are also cards included that you can enter into their website, and also plenty of games in your own search for the clues.

Although you can start anywhere, I’d advise starting at the beginning of the series. Highly recommended.

Buy the first book in The 39 Clues series, The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan.

2. Swindle

This is also an on-going series, written by the author of four of the books in the above series, Gordon Korman. There are currently seven books out. They are all action-packed adventures about a kid named Griffin Bing (The Man with the Plan) and his friends. Griffin is always trying to get into things and right wrongs. In Swindle, Griffin and his best friend Ben Slovak find a 1920 Babe Ruth baseball card. They take it to a collector to see if it’s worth anything and the guy totally swindles him. Griffin takes a mere hundred and twenty bucks for a rare card that is worth nearly a million.

So they try to right this wrong and steal the card back. The heist involves several other kids, and even the police get involved eventually. Very, very, exciting fast paced and exciting books. All of the books in this series (except for the fourth, which is still more lighthearted but still good) follow this kind of similar pattern of Griffin and his friends taking matters into their own hands. Kids just love this series!

Buy Swindle by Gordon Korman.

3. Last Shot

This is the first book in a sports series by John Feinstein. The main characters are fourteen year-olds Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol. They are the two winners of a writing contest so they get to travel out to write about the Final Four basketball tournament.

While there, they realize there is a plot to blackmail one of the star players, Chip Graber, to throw a game on purpose. Stevie and Susan Carol work together with Chip to find out what is going on and to catch the guys who are orchestrating this. There are similar types of stories in books focused on baseball (Change Up), football (Cover Up and The Rivlary; the former being the Super Bowl and the latter being about Army vs. Navy), tennis (Vanishing Act), and swimming (Rush for the Gold) all with different plots and mysteries. There is no regard for previous plot-lines except in regards to character development, and that is pretty minor, so you can start with the book that covers your favorite sport.

John Feinstein is a well-respected sports journalist who knows the industry well and also a fine mystery writer, so these books are a treat. There are many twists of plot that make them exciting from cover to cover.

Buy Last Shot, Vanishing Act, Cover Up, Change Up, The Rivalry, or Rush for the Gold by John Feinstein.

4. On the Run

This is another series (one six-book series and a follow-up trilogy called Kidnapped) by Gordon Korman, the same author of the Swindle series, about two kids named Aiden and Meg Falconer whose parents get convicted as terrorist-aiders and sentenced to life in jail in “the trial of the century.” The Falconer family become the most hated

This is very bad for Aiden and Meg, obviously. They try foster care, but their parents being so well-known and so ubiquitously hated is major problem. Eventually they get sent to a low-security prison in order to take them out of the spotlight for a few years (despite the fact they have committed no crimes).

It is a horrible situation. They have to work on a farm and do school most of the day, living among thieves and murderers. Meg wants to get out of there to prove their parents innocent, but Aiden realizes there’s no way to do it. Except for one day, a fire breaks out. Aiden decides to let it go and burn the place down, so they can escape. Others jump, too, but one by one, the others get caught while Aiden and Meg manage to stay on the run.

Aiden and Meg know their parents are actually innocent. They were working for an FBI agent, not for terrorists! But he has disappeared off the face of the earth. To prove their parents innocence, they have to track him down, something the Falconers’ high-priced criminal attorneys were unable to do. And they must do it with the FBI chasing them down and a crazy killer who wants to make them dead.

This is one of my all-time favorites, an action-packed adventure that will keep you guessing.

Buy the first book in the series, Chasing the Falconers by Gordon Korman.

I’ve just told you about four great series that combine for a total of forty-three books. These should keep you busy for a while!

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