Secrets of the Pyramids: The Last Pharoah by R. L. LeFevers

Mother stared at me for a long moment. "Your grandmother is right. You are a peculiar child."

Her words stung me to the quick. Peculiar? Peculiar!

All the joy and promise of this trip evaporated. One part of me longed to explain the true reasons I acted so peculiar, but I didn't think the true reasons would make her feel any better. In fact, she would most likely ship me off to a sanatorium if she knew that I spent most of my time removing black magic and ancient curses from rare and powerful artifacts in the Museum of Legends and Antiquities that my parents oversaw back in London. Or that I spent quite a lot of energy avoiding secret societies that would love to get their hands on those artifacts and use them for their own evil ends. No, Mother wouldn't consider those reasons any less peculiar.

No, mother doesn't know the half of it, and Theodosia Throckmorton, with the powerful Orb of Ra in her Victorian reticule and the Emerald Tablet concealed in her smuggled cat 's basket, is on a mission for the Keepers of the Secrets to return those magical objects to her Egyptian allies, webjedin. Undercover as a demure eleven-year-old, Theodosia knows she must return the sacred relics, long held in England, without letting them fall into the hands of the Serpents of Chaos, all the while keeping these midnight activities a secret from her mother, who has only grudgingly brought her along to Egypt to help discover the tomb of Thutmose III.

Theodosia has long sensed that she somehow has the power to sense the hekau, ancient magical powers and curses left behind by the gods of Egypt, and once in Cairo her senses are almost overwhelmed by the miasma of these forces all around her. Still, she find allies in the form of Major Grindle, a British officer who is also a clandestine Keeper of the Secrets, and Hadji, a donkey boy who himself seems to have an aura of power despite his rags and small size.

Despite her best efforts, however, Theodosia finds herself falling into the hands of the henchmen of Chaos, and then her mother and Hadji, whom the Keepers and the Serpents of Chaos believe is the last and future Pharoah of a liberated Egypt, are also kidnapped and held for an unthinkable ransom, a price which only Theodosia can pay.

R. L. LeFevers' Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh (The Theodosia Series) (Houghton Mifflin, 2011), the fourth book in the notable Theodosia Series, proves to be the most engrossing adventure yet. Set in a turn-of-the-century Egypt awash in its own anticolonialist chaos, this episode has plenty of atmosphere as Theodosia transcends the restraints upon young girls of the period in midnight missions among the pyramids to foil skullduggerous villains, including the ever-reincarnated villain Braggenschnott and his minions of doom, the secret society of Chaos, which seeks to turn the powers of ancient Egypt into their own evil ends. Theodosia understands that she has a role to play and bravely uses her own developing powers in an atmospheric adventure story which will keep readers riveted to the page.

Despite its place as fourth in the series, this novel easily stands alone. In the hands of master storyteller LeFevers, Theodosia matures, growing in the recognition of her own powers and in her growing understanding that she is indeed a Rekhet, a descendant of the magical seer priestesses of ancient Egypt and that her peculiarity is no quirk of nature, but a magical bequest descended to her through her little-known grandfather. And we sense that with her now-understood true nature, Theodosia will return to the eternal struggle between the powers of good and evil with renewed powers in the next volume.

Fans of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians and his Egypt-centered The Kane Chronicles will find Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh (The Theodosia Series) familiar fantasy adventure territory.

On My Honor: The Last Full Measure by Ann Rinaldi

How could David always be so sure of his own rightness and never question himself? Never waiver for a moment to see the other person's side of it? Not even for a God-given little minute? Myself, somehow, despite my young years, I always knew there was another side to everything, and that was what frightened me in this world. The other side of things, and the fact that I might not see them.

But not my brother David--oh, no. He knew all and he saw all, God help him.

Tacy Stryker is 14, living in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July of 1863. Her dad and two older brothers are off with the Union Army, and Tacy and her mother are left in the care of her older brother, David. David is both bitter and shamed that his shattered leg makes him unable to fight with his brothers, and Tacy, just beginning to feel herself a young woman, chafes under his harsh rule. She feels she is treated like a child, scolded for slipping out to check on Marvelous, her friend who is hiding in the nearby woods with other free blacks to avoid a return to slavery by the Rebels, or for daring to visit a friend treating the wounded in a makeshift hospital in the local church.

Until the war impinges on her world, she has been very close to David, the youngest brother, her playmate and ally, but as the war comes into her own home, David's assurance that he is always right crosses with Tacy's way of thinking often, and she struggles to meet her brother's expectations and be true to herself as well. But as the town fills with Confederates and she meets them face to face, she suddenly sees that she can never see the world in the same way David does.

Veteran historical fiction writer Ann Rinaldi sets up a family drama which is in a way a metaphor for the conflicting versions of honor which helped provoke the war itself. In her forthcoming The Last Full Measure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), Rinaldi's Tacy Stryker is a protagonist who is a clear-eyed eyewitness to the events around the critical Battle of Gettysburg, a conflict which changes her family and the nation forever. In her surprising climax, Rinaldi shows how David's sense of honor leads him to an unexpected act, one of great courage and yet one which is, like many deeds of war, perhaps meaningless outside the framework of conflict.

Rinaldi gets inside her main character and skillfully lets the historical events flow around her in a way that is historically accurate and yet natural. Her plot unfolds briskly but not without the detail that heightens the reader's sense of being there and seeing it as only an impressionable and resilient young woman could.

Dash It All! The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline (An Enola Holmes Mystery) by Nancy Springer

CARRIER PIGEON. DELIVER YOUR BIRD-BRAINED MESSAGE AT ONCE OR YOU WILL BE SORRY YOU EVER LEFT SCUTARI.

Still in her deep disguise as Miss Meshle, the supposed clerk of her fictitious alter ego, Dr. Leslie Ragostin, Scientific Perditorian of missing persons, Enola Holmes comes home from her day's work of detecting to find her landlady in a state. Widowed by the Crimean War thirty-six years before, the very deaf and elderly ("She must be over fifty!" Enola remarks to herself) Mrs. Tupper has received a cryptic and threatening note and begs Enola to help her. Enola agrees reluctantly.

Enola is still in hiding from Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, whose brotherly plans to stash her away at a finishing school, imprisoned in whaleboned corsetry, until safely ensconced in a satisfactory Victorian marriage strike fear in her independent heart. To keep her freedom, she knows she must not make herself noticed by making inquiries among the gentile social circles in which her brothers move, specifically that of the venerable Florence Nightingale, whose intervention saved Mrs. Tupper from sure death in the typhoid-ridden Crimean conflict. But before Enola can choose a strategy, Mrs. Tupper is abducted at knife-point by two men, one a ruffian, one a well-spoken gentleman, and her lowly lodgings ransacked from top to bottom.

Going through the detritus of their search for a clue to their purpose, Enola finds nothing of import, but her eye is caught by an elegant mid-century-styled blue silk gown and its enormous horsehair crinoline, strangely adorned with a hastily basted-on ribbon elaborately embroidered with a series of roses, daisies, and leaves. Soon Enola herself discovers that she is being stalked by a suspicious gentleman whom she nicknames "Classic Profile." Learning that Florence Nightingale is still alive, Enola manages to sneak herself into her bedchamber to discover the connection between Nightingale, presumably "The Bird," and "Carrier Pigeon," apparently Mrs. Tupper. Using the family talent for dissembling, disguise, and observation which she shares with Sherlock, Enola also notices that Nightingale's home is decorated with many examples of elaborate embroidery like that on on the crinoline and by many Victorian silhouettes, one of which is a perfect ringer for her pursuer, "Classic Profile."

Then everything falls into place when an overheard conversation in a stylish women's club and a quick look at Morse Code in their Encyclopaedia Britannica reveals that her transcription of the embroidered design on the crinoline is indeed in code and reveals that Mrs. Tupper was an unwitting go-between intended to transport evidence of a vast military supply fraud to Lord Whimbley, an advisor close to Queen Victoria. Now, many decades later, that coded ribbon is the key to the ruination of the rising political career of the current Lord Rodney Whimbley, and Enola realizes that Whimbley's own brother, the evil Geoffrey, is the would-be blackmailer who is holding the unwitting Mrs. Tupper as hostage.

But just as Enola dons yet another disguise to penetrate the Whimbley townhouse to free Mrs. Tupper, she learns that there is another detective on the case, none other than her brother, Sherlock Holmes, also in deep disguise and simultaneously seeking entrance to the Whimbley house. Now Enola knows she must elude two pursuers--Geoffrey, who is willing to kill both Mrs. Tupper and herself if necessary and her over-protective big brother who wants both to solve the case and resume his patriarchal role as protector and manager of her life.

Nancy Springer's latest in her Enola Holmes Mysteries, The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline is an impossible-to-put-down addition to this marvelously constructed series. The atmosphere is deliciously Sherlockian, with its late Victorian London setting and with a fourteen-year-old girl sleuth who outdoes Nancy Drew in her boldness, intelligence, and chameleon-like daring-do. A not-to-be missed new entry for mystery fans and lovers of fine storytelling alike.

My reviews of earlier books in this delightful series can be seen here.

Still Making It in Middle School: Girls Acting Catty by Leslie Margolis

Taylor's crowd--I mean Terrible T and the Three Terrors--sits just two tables over.

The next time Taylor walked by, Rachel said all sweetly, "I love those jeans."

Taylor mumbled an unenthusiastic thanks, at which point Rachel said, "At least that's what I thought when you wore them all last week."

We were pretty happy for about five minutes. Then Nikki walked up to Rachel, handed her a napkin, and said, "You have something on your face."

"It looks like spaghetti sauce," she said, and then pretended to be all embarrassed. "Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry. That's just your skin."

Sixth-grader Annabelle had thought all the transition problems were behind her. She and her mom had moved to a new town to be with her mom's new fiance, a.k.a. "The Dweeb." Always a student in a girl's private school, Annabelle found sixth-grade boys--those boys who tease and belch out the "Star-Spangled Banner" at lunch, kick the back of your seat, and hide your book report on the day it's due--totally intimidating until she discovered she could use the same techniques on the boys that she used training her puppy Pepper.

But girls had been no problem. Annabelle had fallen into a close group of four, all friends of Rachel across the street, and sixth grade, at least, seemed under control. That is, until things turn scary on Halloween night. Trick or treating, the girls are chased by egg-throwing boys and then confronted by Taylor and her "three stooges" who diss their carefully made costumes as babyish. Suddenly, even lunchtime has become a minefield of catty girl insults, and Annabelle feels like she's in over her head again.

And that's just at school. Her mom and The Dweeb decide to reset their wedding plans to the Christmas holidays, and The Dweeb's twenty-year-old son comes for an extended visit. Annabelle has all kinds of worries about dealing with an older almost-step-brother, but she would never have guessed that her problem was going to be massive crush she acquires on her first look at the handsome, sweet, and funny Jason.

And Annabelle never knew she'd be worrying that the conniving Taylor would find a way to come between her and best friends Rachel, Yumi, Claire, and Emma:

I tried reasoning with Yumi. "This was all just a big misunderstanding."

"Really?" she asked. "Well, don't misunderstand this!" Yumi stormed out of the bathroom and everyone else followed.

I leaned against the wall, stunned and alone. All this time I'd been stressing over which crowd to hang out with, and now no one liked me.

I'd gone from having eight friends to having zero friends in the span of three minutes. That's got to be some kind of record.

Leslie Margolis' latest in her middle school series, Girls Acting Catty (Bloomsbury, 2009), continues her realistic middle-school saga of Annabelle Stevens with the characteristic wit, insight, and common sense shown so promisingly with her earlier hit, Boys Are Dogs. (See my review here.)

Measure for Measure: Gauge (The Dragons of Wayward Crescent) by Chris D'Lacey

Lucy Pennykettle could definitely smell burning. This was not unusual in her house at Number 42 Wayward Crescent. Lucy's mother, Liz, made clay dragons for living, and as everyone knows, dragons breathe fire--well, some of Liz's special dragons did, anyway.

Lucy's mom is more than a gifted potter with a talent for one-of-a-kind dragon sculptures. She is also a secret keeper of the ancient magical "flame" that is capable of preserving the ancient race of dragons in her little figures.

In the second of Chris D'Lacey's beginning chapter series of The Dragons of Wayward Crescent, Lucy Pennykettle falls in love with her mom's latest creation, Gauge, an earnest little dragon bearing an arcane device which enables him to calibrate measuring devices with perfect accuracy.

And it isn't long before Gauge's special abilities are needed. Lucy learns that the the town's historic library clock tower is to be demolished and replaced with a digital timepiece quite out of character with her small English town. Quickly, Liz and Lucy organize a demonstration of preservationists to confront their pigheaded councilman, Roger Trustable, in front of a hastily assembled collection of regional television cameras and townspeople. Councilman Trustable staunchly insists that the clock's ancient works are hopelessly beyond repair. While her mom and teacher Mrs. Baxter divert attention by chaining themselves to the library carts downstairs, Lucy tries to sneak Gauge into the tower so that he and his magical measuring device can diagnose the old clock's malady and find a way to get it running properly again.

Trustable and his henchman Mr. Higson discover Lucy's plan and, just as Gauge gets to work diagnosing the problem, they literally attempt to clog up the clock works. But their malefactions summon an unsuspected ally for Lucy and Gauge--the tower's resident ghost Sir Rufus Trenchcombe, who alone knows the historic way to restart the clock.

Lucy Pennykettle and her tiny dragon cohorts are novel and engaging characters in the latest in this series, Gauge (The Dragons Of Wayward Crescent) (Scholastic, 2010). For the youngest fans of dragon lore and the fantasy-loving followers of Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House series, these beginning chapter books, with their lively illustrations and their close-to-home adventures in cozy settings, are a good fit.

For older readers, who like their dragons a bit more hot-tempered, see D'Lacey's middle reader adventure series, The Last Dragon Chronicles, beginning with his best-selling adventure tale, The Fire Within.

Booting Up: These Boots Are Made for Stalking (The Clique, Book 12 ) by Lisi Harrison

HAS THE CLIQUE OUTGROWN THEIR
CRUSHES?

EHMAGAWD! Has Derrington wiggled his backside for Dylan for the last time?

May be. As Halloween nears, Massie Block, the Clique alpha, has turned on her deadly BiteMeBerry-glossed smile and toasted her latest crush, ninth-grader Landon Crane, with a double Draculatte. Following her lead, the other Pretty Committee girls seem to be ditching the eighth-grade boys at Briarcliffe for ninth-grade hawties at Abner Doubleday Prep as well. And at the least, Massie's pup Bean has it bad for Landon's doggie Bark, and Massie is not above sending Bean in for a puppy playdate with a spycam collar to make sure that her new crush is faithful, especially since hearing rumors that he's been seen with a tattooed mystery girl Massie calls "Anklebird."

But as always, the Pretty Committee ranks are restive. Massie has coped with palace coups before, especially from co-alpha wannabe Alicia Rivera, but this time it's the compliant Claire who refuses to go along with the program. Kuh-laire clings to her eighth-grade crush Cam and even invites Massie's anti-pop nemesis, Layne Abelay, clad in a tacky LBR orange Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun tee, to the Clique's pre-Halloween planning party for their trick or treat appearance as Trampires (hawt vampires).

And when Claire discovers her inner thespian and starts spending all her free time onstage and off with Layne's Westchester Kids Theatre, Massie decides it is time to boot up for a text message shootout at the karaoke corral:

"this. is. war." she texts.

"bring. it. on." Claire replies.

Lisi Harrison's just published sequel, The Clique #12: These Boots Are Made for Stalking (Clique Series) (Little, Brown, 2010) takes her best-selling series into new territory as Massie Block attempts to stake out a place in the Transylvania of high school hawties for herself and her Pretty Committee. And there's no need to worry that the Clique is going to stalk right out of our lives any time soon: Harrison's next installment, The Clique #13: My Little Phony (Clique Series) is going to come galloping into publication, appropriately enough, on July 13, 2010.

See You Later, Miss Home Invader! The Trouble with Goldie by Meg Elias

Dear Isabelle,

You may not remember me, but I remember you very well. I need your help, Jelly.

Every day I make the beds, clean the house, and make a big pot of oatmeal for my family. We always go on a short walk before lunch. Lately when we return home, our house is a disaster! Broken chairs, dirty dishes, sometimes we even find a little girl asleep in my son's bed! This has to stop!

Please come quickly!
Your old friend M.B.

A mysterious, unstamped letter, addressed to Isabelle, nicknamed "Jelly Belle," somehow has a familiar ring to it. Then Jelly remembers where she's heard this tale before. Digging out her favorite old story book that night, she settles herself under the covers with her trusty flashlight for some investigation, but when she opens the story of The Three Bears, suddenly everything around her changes:

My flashlight blinked out and I shook it to jar the batteries. When it lit up again, I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I was on a forest trail, and there was a pretty cottage just ahead of me.

Jelly Belle is amazed to learn that whenever she had opened her old copy of the bear family's tale, the Bears were watching and listening to her as she read about them, and now Mama Bear has sent for her to intercede, "human to human," with their pretty but messy daily intruder. Back at the Bears' house with its owners, Jelly sees for herself the disorder inside--a hopelessly broken chair, apple cinnamon oatmeal splashed all over, and a pretty blonde girl about Jelly's age napping under Baby Bear's beloved "bank-et" upstairs.

But with Jelly on the job, communications go better, and she is able to draw out Goldie's reasons for these unexpected visits. It's all a matter of the wrong address, and Goldie is soon on her way to her intended destination at her Aunt Lily's cottage just down the road.

Meg Elias' proposed three-book series of beginning chapter books, Letters to Jelly Belle, promises more fairy tale-related adventures, all beginning with an intriguing letter from a storied character for Isabelle. Her first, The Trouble With Goldie: Letters to Jelly Belle (Volume 1), offers cozy adventures in the land of literature with easily accessible vocabulary for early chapter book fans.

Doing It with Grace: Just Grace Goes Green by Charise Mericle Harper

THINGS YOU CAN CHANGE:

YOUR FRIENDS Sometimes you might think that you have the perfect number of friends, but then you add a new friend to the list and suddenly you can't believe that it used to be different, because now it seems so just right perfect, and just maybe even better than before.

YOUR MIND So that if you at first thought one thing, but then some time goes by and now you think another thing, then that's okay.

Some things haven't changed. With so many Graces in her class, Grace is still stuck with being Just Grace at school. Miss Lois, who tends to be set in her ways, even has her in alphabetical order right after Jordan in her grade book. But taking over from the funny and friendly substitute, Mr. Frank, who had a talent for making third grade invigorating, Miss Lois is clearly trying to make learning more exciting, and Just Grace is inspired by their class drive to "go green." Grace quickly becomes dedicated to decorating plastic water bottles, turning off unused lights, and brushing her teeth with a minimum of water.

But even going green doesn't take up all of Grace's attention when her best friend Mimi announces that her cousin Gwen is coming to stay for weeks while her parents are away. Grace is curious about Gwen, but finds herself just a little green with jealousy, worried that Mimi will spend all of her time with her guest and Grace will be Just Lonely Grace. Gwen is nice, but being a year older makes her seem a bit bossy, and she manages to take up most of Mimi's time. But when she commandeers Willoughby, Mimi's favorite stuffed rabbit, for her own, Grace sees a way to win back Mimi's affection by finding a way to substitute her unwanted stuffed owl as Gwen's favorite bedtime buddy.

But it's not an easy scheme to carry out, especially since the three girls are so involved in their recycling project, plans for Gwen's birthday party, and managing a yard sale to make sure all their unwanted toys will not be added to the waste stream. But Just Grace finally comes up with a plan which just might work--wrapping her old toy up as a birthday present for Gwen, who falls for it, abandoning Willoughby right away for her new Owly.

Early chapter book fans of Judy Moody, Clementine, Ivy and Bean or Allie Finkle will find Just Grace's school and friendship dilemmas funny and familiar territory in her cheerful, easy-going sequel, Just Grace Goes Green, from Charise Harper's popular, light-hearted series, which also includes Just Grace, Still Just Grace, and Just Grace Walks the Dog, all illustrated by "Just Grace" in her inimitable hand-drawn cartoon style.

Making It in Middle School: Into the Woods: How I Survived Middle School by Nancy Krulik

With all my camping experience, the only thing I found worrisome about the trip was this whole packing thing.

I had to pick out clothes that were old enough that I wouldn't care if they got ruined or lost at camp, but cool enough to keep me from being teased by the Pops--our school's group of fashion police.

Joyce Kilmer Middle School's sixth and seventh graders are off for five fun-filled days at Camp Einstein, and as usual, Jenny is trying to survive the power struggle between the Pops, the "popular club" which now includes her former BFF Addie Wilson, and her new "non-Pops" friends. Her new girl friends--Sam, Chloe, Rachel, and Felicia--have requested that they share a cabin together with her, so Jenny's pre-camp jitters are pretty much limited to wardrobe worries.

But the camp directors have other ideas about social groupings, and Jenny, Chloe, and Sam find themselves stuck in a cabin with Addie and Dana Harrison, the queen of the Pops. Jenny, Chloe, and Sam resolve to avoid their Pops roomies as much as possible, but even though numbers are on their side, Jenny knows that they have their work cut out for them for the next five days.

This wasn't the regular world. This was the middle school world. And in our world Pops were more powerful than non-Pops no matter what the numbers. It was just the way it was.

Dana and Addie show up with a forbidden hair dryer and straightener and try to blame the non-Pops for them when they blow the camp's fuses. Caught with the contraband, Dana and Addie wind up on KP the first day, and out for revenge, Dana blames a "sprained ankle" acquired during a trust exercise on her non-Pops partner so that she can order her to fetch and carry for the next few days. The Pops heckle Jenny's friend Josh mercilessly, calling him "Mr. Science Geek," and his girlfriend "Ms. Science Geek" as they belittle his interest in nature studies.

The non-Pops get the last laugh, however, when Jenny shouts "Mouse!" in the cafeteria and Dana drops her crutches and nimbly hops atop a table. And when Addie's misuse of the compass gets the group lost on their night hike, Josh's knowledge of astronomy helps him to become a superstar when he locates the North Star and steers the group safely out of the woods and back to camp. As Jenny puts it philosophically,

That's the thing about middle school. Nothing ever stays the same.

One minute the Pops are the ones everybody wants to be around. Then suddenly everyone's dying to learn how to find the Big Dipper in the sky from Mr. Science Geek.

Nancy Krulik's recent Into The Woods (How I Survived Middle School) (Scholastic, 2009) joins her other books in the How I Survived Middle School series in offering both solid guidance and a light-handed humorous look at the sudden changes in everything that middle school brings.

For my posted review of the first book in the series, Can You Get An F In Lunch? (How I Survived Middle School) and some helpful nonfiction guides to middle school survival, take a look here.

Making It in Middle School: Caught in the Web (How I Survived Middle School) by Nancy Krulik

"I think every school has its own group of Pops.

Basically they're at the top of the middle school food chain."

The non-Pop girls--Jenny, Felicia, Rachel--are bored. Television stinks; the weather stinks; and as they rummage through Jenny's collection of old home movies for entertainment, they run across the video of her third grade sleepover and Easter Egg Hunt.

Laughing over the sight of themselves as eight-year-olds make them yearn to do something telegenic, and the girls suddenly come up with the idea of producing a webcast for the middle school audience. Titling it the Webcast Underground (for the basement from which it is to be broadcast), they soon recruit Marc, their movie fan friend, as director, Liza, their artsy pal, as set designer, and Chloe (who has a new laptop) as their tech person. Jenny prepares promotional flyers to blanket their middle school, and when their talent show takes to the webwaves, the non-Pops find themselves, well, instant celebs at Joyce Kilmer Middle.

But their moment as neo-POPs doesn't last. The Pops can't stand to give up center stage and waste no time in trotting out their competitive webcast School Style. But for their second show, the Pops get more notoriety than popularity. They select a bespectacled plain Jane non-Pop named Melissa for their glamor makeover special. The webcast goes great, but when they trot out their new beauty queen at lunch the next day, the nearsighted Melissa, not wearing her dorky glasses, of course, mistakes the false eyelash she drops in her soup for a spider, and there's a lot of flying food decorating the perfect outfits at the Pops table, to the amusement of the whole cafeteria.

As usual, the Pops get their comeuppance, in Nancy Krulik's Caught in the Web (How I Survived Middle School), the continuing middle school saga featuring Jenny and her non-Pop friends whose humor and resilience make sixth grade fun despite everything. Other books in the How I Survived Middle School series include Can You Get An F In Lunch? (How I Survived Middle School), Madame President (How I Survived Middle School), It's All Downhill From Here (How I Survived Middle School), I Heard A Rumor (How I Survived Middle School), Who's Got Spirit? (How I Survived Middle School) and Cheat Sheet (How I Survived Middle School).

History Mystery: The Tangled Web: A Julie Mystery by Kathryn Reiss

Julie, one of American Girl Collection's newer historical characters, returns in her first historical fiction mystery. As the story begins, Julie is still trying to settle into her new life in a tiny apartment above her mom's store, Gladrags, on a busy urban street in the San Francisco of 1973.

"It's a mystery we manage to live here at all," Julie declared.

"This apartment is no bigger than my locker at school!"

Julie misses her big old house in the suburbs, with her best friend Ivy Ling just next door. However, being the new girl at the beginning of the school year does make her sympathetic with Carla, a new girl in her class, and Julie determines to make her feel welcome. And at first Carla seems perfectly at ease, telling Julie and her friends about her big new house in the historic "Painted Ladies" neighborhood, her talented brothers Tom and Tim, who are attending a private school, Maxwell Academy, her successful physician parents, and even her adorable Kindergarten sister Nancy. But gradually Julie and her friends begin to suspect that Carla's stories can't be true, and Julie realizes that her new friend is a real mystery.

Shadowing Carla only adds to the suspicious inconsistencies in her story. On a weekend sleepover, Ivy agrees to help follow Carla to find out if her story about her beautiful new house is true. The girls see Carla, walking a large, friendly dog, about to enter the house, and when they call out to her, she reluctantly invites them in for a quick visit, nervously adding that she is not allowed to have friends over when her parents are away. Carla hastily answers a few questions about family photos on display, but when a middle-aged man appears at the front door, Carla quickly pushes Julie and Ivy out the back.

But when Carla is absent from school the next day, Julie returns to the house, ostensibly to take Carla her missed work, planning to investigate further. Entering through the open front door, she meets the man she and Ivy saw the previous day, who seems puzzled when she asks about Carla.

"Carla lives quite a way from here. Carla's our dog walker," he says.

When the man good naturedly offers to give Julie Carla's address, Julie decides that she must pay a visit to Carla to ask her to explain her deceptions and to make sure that she is not in any danger. What she learns is not at all what she expected, and she soon sees that Carla's secrets have a story which goes much deeper than Julie imagined.

The Tangled Web: A Julie Mystery (American Girl Mysteries) gives the young reader a view of life in the early 1970s, a time in which girls and women found their lives changing radically. In the first book of the series, Meet Julie: An American Girl (American Girls Collection), Julie has to become an activist under Title IX to be allowed to play basketball for her school, and in this latest installment in the series, she and her mother and sister become involved with the rehabilitation of Viet Nam veterans in her community. There are no stereotypical hippies and flower children here, just ordinary people dealing with the challenges of their time.

As always for books in the American Girl Collection, an illustrated appendix illuminates the events and sights of those times, including, interestingly, those picturesque "painted lady" houses on Steiner Street which figured in the familiar opening to the television show "Full House."