Sammy Keyes

Funny you should ask. You will note from my bio that I am no spring chicken, so you might also be puzzled why I am enthusiastic about a mystery series featuring a girl just starting middle school.

About six years ago we lived in a small town in western Washington. "We" in this case means myself, my wife and three kids, who were 12, 14 and 16 years old. We home-schooled at that time, and so we always had about two dozen library books in the house at any given moment. One Saturday everyone else was out of the house and I had nothing to do. Someone had checked out Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief, so I picked it up and read the prologue. It was intriguing enough that I read the first chapter, then the second, then the . . . Well, you get the picture.

I liked it so much that I read it aloud to the rest of the family (yeah, we did that; still do). Everyone else like dthe story as well, and we have read all the rest of them. Usually I read them aloud to the family, but sometimes the oldest couldn't wait and read it by himself. If anyone in your family is good at reading aloud, this is a really good way to go through these books. It also gets the family together in an old-fashioned way that everyone should enjoy.

Who knows? If the author follows the pattern she has already established, this will take place around Halloween (hence the title?). Ms. van Draanen has certainly got a following that can't wait until the next SK book comes out.