Hannah and the Magic Eye

Written byTyler Enfield

Great Plains Teen Fiction

978-1-927855-68-3

165 pp.

Ages 8-12

April 2017

“…taking her on a tour through the last three-thousand years of Israel’s major religions–from Judaism, to Islam, and lastly to Christianity–all of them locked together by a shared history in this solitary, enchanted city and a magical ring once worn by its wisest king.” (pg. 135)

Think The Da Vinci Code for middle-graders and you have Edmonton author Tyler Enfield’s Hannah and the Magic Eye.  Entombed in archaeology, a secret society and secret codes, it's a thriller which takes place in Jerusalem, one of the oldest and historically richest cities of the world.

Twelve-year-old Hannah travels from her home in Brussels, Belgium to visit her famed archaeologist grandfather, Henri Dubuisson, in Jerusalem.  When she arrives and Henri is not there to meet her, she only has a cryptic note he’d sent her to guide her.  She discovers a secret online message from her Grandpa Henri about a treasure beyond her wildest dreams and a secret society called the Cancellarii in search of the same treasure. Convinced Henri has been kidnapped and attempting to avoid several nefarious characters who attempt to follow her and grab her, Hannah, with the help of a Palestinian boy who likens himself to George Clooney, uncovers an ancient journal by ancestor Julien Dubuisson.  Hannah and Clooney must decipher the seven illustrations within, using a camera and a lot of ingenuity about historic sites in Jerusalem and environs, if they are to decipher the mysterious treasure map and discover a treasure that once belonged to King Solomon and save her grandfather.

No stops for deep breaths on this adventure.  Tyler Enfield has plotted a story so intricate and action-packed that young readers won’t have time to take breaks to learn about the historic details woven into the story (though they will surely be googling King Solomon, the different quarters of Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock after finishing the book).  Clever Hannah is like a young Indiana Jones with her loyal sidekick Clooney who gets her both into and out of trouble.  With Hannah’s code-breaking skills and historic knowledge along with Clooney’s familiarity with their exotic location, Hannah and the Magic Eye is a thrilling course of intrigue that captivates and captures, inviting young readers to travel with Hannah and Clooney on their adventure, even on camel back. And judging by the conclusion of Hannah and the Magic Eye, they have a subsequent treasure hunt in Cambodia with Hannah and Clooney assisting Henri, all courtesy of Tyler Enfield's elaborate plotting and savvy for telling an exciting middle-grade story.

Enigma (Camp X series, Book 6)

by Eric Walters
Puffin Canada
978-0-14-318710-3
256 pp.
Ages 9+
November, 2013

If you haven't shared in the Eric Walters' Camp X experience, then hold onto your fedora, homburg or baker boy's cap.  The series that began with brothers Jack and George discovering  a Canadian spy training camp, Camp X, near their summer residence in 1942 Whitby, Ontario has moved through four additional books and World War II continues to wreak havoc across the world and extend its reach.

George Braun, now 12, and his brother Jack, 15, are accompanying their parents by ship to England as part of a convoy of cargo ships, destroyers, corvettes and such when one of the ships is torpedoed by a U-boat in the Atlantic.  Before the U-boat is sunk, the Marines retrieve a device that has the MPs requesting that the boys' mother, Betty, and the rest of the family transfer to the destroyer Valiant for speedier delivery to England.  The device is an Enigma machine, the encrypting system the Germans were using, and "the key to winning the war" (pg. 55) according to Bill Stephenson, who leads the British security forces.

The family is taken to Bletchley Park, the headquarters of British encryption operations, where Mrs. Braun is asked to work with the genius, Professor Alan, and where Captain Braun is to assess, test and revamp security.  The boys who have already proved themselves in earlier adventures to be keen observers are invited to deliver messages and do odd jobs while helping to determine whether any spies or Nazi sympathizers may have already infiltrated Bletchley.  George and Jack meet up again with Ray, the ex-convict and master of disguise who they met in Trouble in Paradise and who now works for the government out of Bletchley Park.

But, everything seems to go amiss when the boys accompany Ray to London by train.  Jack goes along so that he can meet up and spend some alone time with Louise, the British princess they'd all originally been coming to England to visit.  George is to join Ray on the hunt for potential code-breakers.  When Ray is spotted by some old criminal colleagues, they are all taken at gunpoint and held until Ray gets into Naval Intelligence (where he now has access) and sneaks out the plans for which the Nazis are willing to pay Bruno and his fellow thugs loads of money. 

If this sounds like an edge-of-your-seat adventure, in which secrets must be kept and you don't know whom to trust, then you've got a good idea of how Enigma plays out.  George and Jack are typical brothers, always hassling each other, even more so now that Jack is in the throes of teen love.  Eric Walters does not disappoint in carrying the reader effortlessly through this newest Camp X adventure, making the boys' exploits seem almost realistic and probably the envy of every young reader who believe espionage to be a possible career option. (Is it?) By including the factual details of Enigma and Bletchley Park, as well as real persons like Ian Fleming, Bill Stephenson and Alan Turing, Eric Walters creates such authenticity in Enigma that some readers will wonder if the adventures are "just" stories or historical accounts of little-known events from World War II.  And that is an amazing accomplishment for any author.

If Enigma seems like a great read for a young person in your life, especially a boy who enjoys historical fiction suffused with spies, adventure and war, check out the whole Camp X series which includes six books to date:

1. Camp X
2. Camp 30
3. Fool's Gold
4. Shell Shocked
5. Trouble in Paradise
6. Enigma

With the publication of Enigma, Penguin has redesigned the covers of all books in the series.

Be assured, though, that regardless of the cover, the same great stories and writing will be found within.

The Spotted Dog Last Seen

by Jessica Scott Kerrin

Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press

978-1-55498-387-2

196 pp.

Ages 8-11

August 2013

The Spotted Dog Last Seen may focus on a cemetery and headstones and the dead, but it's really a story about buried secrets and making things right. And with a motley crew of characters led by our narrator Derek (whose passion is collecting sayings to put on t-shirts e.g., Change is good.  You go first.) and the cotton-ball eye-browed Mr. Creelman, The Spotted Dog Last Seen takes the story from grave (pun intended) to middle-grade perfection.

Imagine having Grade 6 students volunteer once a week for the last three months of the school year and getting the assignment of helping the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade tend to the grave markers.  Along with Pascal Bender and Merrilee Takahashi, Derek gets lessons from the trio of elderly men, led by the emphatic Mr. Creelman, about reading numbers, symbols, epitaphs, shapes, and composites of stone, all with the aim of helping them clean the markers. While Derek reacts strongly to stone-carved hands and his recurring nightmare about an orange rubber ball, he starts to enjoy their Wednesday afternoons together.  Pascal is entertaining and asks quirky questions, Merrilee engrosses them in a mystery involving codes linked to some library books, and Derek finds himself learning so much that his fear of cemeteries is diminishing.

"Creelman had been showing us all along that cemeteries were much more about the living than they were about the dead." (pg. 118)

The Spotted Dog Last Seen is a mystery at its heart so I can't give much more away except to say that it involves a school's time capsule, a Mystery Book Club, hidden memories, guilt and much more work in the Twillingate Cemetery. 

Knowing author Jessica Scott Kerrin from her Martin Bridge early-reader series from Kids Can Press, I am familiar with her capable writing with boys as protagonists.  With The Spotted Dog Last Seen, Jessica Scott Kerrin can now add middle-grade writing to her skills.  Boys will enjoy the irreverence of Derek's t-shirts, Pascal's lack of self-control and the grim aura of the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade of Mr. Creelman, Mr. Peeble and Mr. Wooster.  While I felt that there were too many dangling subplots at one point, and I could not keep track of how they were related, I just needed to be patient.  Jessica Scott Kerrin entwines the subplots almost effortlessly.  For me, it's the crisp dialogue, usually between characters but just as effectively in Derek's head, that says much more than a few words normally can that enriches the story beyond a mystery to a personal journey of understanding and growth.

What Happened in July

Written by Margaret J. McMaster
Mansbridge Dunn Publishers
978-0-981-052540
57 pp.
Ages 7-9
2012


What Happened in July, the fourth book in Margaret J. McMaster's Babysitter Out of Control! early reader series, has our young narrator, Stewart, again in the care of his babysitter, the elderly Mrs. Chairbottom, while his detective parents are working.

Behind one of the kitchen cupboards which Mrs. Chairbottom is having replaced, they find an old newspaper from July 1932. The cover page of the newspaper has four different words circled in red with several combinations of numbers and letters written beside them.  With the help of Mrs. Chairbottom's friend, Colonel Alfred Peabody, they discover the secret code that ultimately leads them to an old mystery of stolen diamonds.

Reminiscent of the Horrible Harry (by Suzy Kline) and Nate the Great (by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat) series of mysteries for young readers, What Happened in July presents a simple mystery that gives readers a chance to try out some new skills, here code-breaking.  While the nature of early readers generally precludes multi-layered plotting and characterizations, What Happened in July provides more than just a linear mystery plot i.e., discovering a mystery and directly finding the solution.  Because of the addition of the code-breaking and help needed to discover information not readily accessible, young readers will experience the more complicated plotting of a true mystery.

Books for early readers are at a severe disadvantage compared to picture books, longer fiction and nonfiction.  While picture books can use incredible graphics to support and add meaning to the sparse text, as can non-fiction, and middle-grade and YA literature has the opportunity and word count to extend all elements of the story to enhance its telling, early readers must rely on simple plots and easy vocabulary, perhaps with the occasional graphic, to convey a complete story.  For that reason, I feel that reading the first three books in the series would have enhanced my understanding of the characters' relationships and the history of Mrs. Chairbottom's babysitting of Stewart.  It must be difficult for authors such as Margaret J. McMaster to restrain themselves from elaborating on their plots and setting and characters to ensure that they don't lose their readership.  And too much of anything in an early chapter book is sure to turn off a new reader.  So, kudos to those authors such as Margaret J. McMaster who accept the challenge of penning a story for the youngest readers and can still tell a good solid story.

You can check out Margaret J. McMaster's blog here http://margaretmcmaster.blogspot.ca/ to see the other volumes in her Babysitter Out of Control series and her other children's book, Carried Away on Licorice Days (Mansbridge Dunn, 2008).