Month: January 2019

Book Review: 24 Hours in Nowhere

~ Beth Mitchell ~ 6 Comments

3835084724 Hours in Nowhere  by Dusti Bowling is the story of  a smart kid named Gus who decides to do something incredibly stupid: venture into Dead Frenchman’s Mine.

Gus doesn’t set out to risk his life on that hot summer day. He’s minding his own business when a bully named Bo tries to make him eat a cactus. When he’s rescued by a girl named Rossi, she trades her dirt bike for his safety. That’s a problem because Rossi is the best racer in town, and she needs that bike if she’s going to beat Bo in the final race of the season the next day. But Gus, who lives with his grandmother in a trailer in Nowhere, Arizona, only has $7 to his name. So he agrees to bring Bo a bar of gold from the dangerous Dead Frenchman’s Mine to get the bike back.

Gus has three companions on his crazy adventure: Matthew, one of Bo’s sidekicks who’s sent to supervise him, Jessie, his former best friend in elementary school who bumps into him when he’s buying supplies, and Rossi, who hears about his plan from Jessie. Over the course of 24 hours, this unlikely team finds many unexpected things in the old abandoned mine.

24 Hours in Nowhere is a satisfying adventure story. I particularly like the way the characters interact with each other. Larrabee enjoyed this one too.

 

Book Review: Al Capone Throws Me a Curve

~ Beth Mitchell ~ 6 Comments

36960177Little League tryouts were this weekend, so I have baseball on my mind. One of the best baseball books I read last year was Al Capone Throws Me a Curve

This book is the fourth in Gennifer Choldenko’s terrific Tales from Alcatraz series.

Like the others, it’s set during the 1930s on Alcatraz Island and stars Moose Flanagan. In this book, Moose is thirteen and a half, and his father is the assistant prison warden.

Moose just wants to spend the summer before 9th grade playing baseball, but his life is never that easy. The captain of the high school baseball team demands Alcatraz souvenirs as the price of allowing Moose and his friend to play. The warden asks Moose to keep an eye on his willful daughter Piper. And his parents often make him responsible for his 17-year-old autistic sister Natalie.

For a good-hearted kid who tries to do the right thing, Moose ends up in some crazy predicaments. His story has both humorous and touching moments. It also has fascinating historical details, but they never bog down the fast-paced plot.

It’s possible to read this book without reading the other three first. Larrabee did. But for me, part of the fun of this book was revisiting the characters and setting that I loved so much from the earlier books in the series.

I’d recommend reading them in order–and then taking a field trip to Alcatraz.