Skip to main content

Walls within Walls

By
Walls within Walls
by Maureen Sherry
HarperCollins, 2010. 349 pgs. Fiction

When Mr. Smithfork hits the bigtime with his video game, the family moves from their cozy Brooklyn neighborhood to a high-rise in Manhattan. The kids hate it. But things look up when they are horsing around and knock the heater grille out of the wall--behind the grille is a painting of a giant eyeball. Further investigation leads to coded clues and a breakneck chase around the landmarks of New York City in search of a lost inheritance. Lucky for the kids the elderly lady who should have received the treasure lives in the apartment beneath theirs and is a helpful adult to accompany them so their parents don't find out what they are up to. Lucky for Patrick, the youngest, who is usually left out of his older brother and sister's schemes, he is the only one who can fit between the false wall of their apartment and the real wall where the clues are hidden. Lucky for kids who like the 39 Clues series or Blue Balliet's puzzle books, Walls within Walls has just a tiny bit of suspense but lots of action and brain-benders as the three Smithfork children try to solve a long-ago mystery for a new-found friend.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

By
  The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Painting for Peace in Ferguson

By
Painting for Peace in Ferguson By Carol Swartout Klein Treehouse Publishing Group, 2015. Nonfiction. When the city of Ferguson was overrun with so much hate and despair that homes and businesses had to be boarded up to protect property, citizens of the community decided to bring a message of hope by painting the boarded windows. Klein’s rhyming text supports the photographs of the hundreds of artists and volunteers and their artwork as they bring the messages of peace, hope, love, and that by being united they can make a difference. A great book to show children how a community rallied to make a positive change and that even a small gesture can make a huge difference. A great discussion opener on how we should treat each other.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Faker

By
Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...
Post a Comment
Read more