Under Cover #2

Time to check in to see what our detectives have been reading lately!

W.H. Beck: I've been booktalking like crazy in my school library lately. One of the new books I love sharing is Tommy Greenwald's CHARLIE JOE JACKSON'S GUIDE TO NOT READING. All I have to do is read the first page to students and they're clamoring to check this funny book out. "Hi, my name is Charlie Joe Jackson, and I hate reading. And if you're reading this book, you hate reading, too. In fact, you do whatever you can to avoid reading, and the fact that you're holding a book in your hand right now is kind of shocking." 
If you have a reluctant reader in your life, you may want to hand them this book.

Kristen Kittscher: Recently I read Zilpha Keatley Snyder's THE EGYPT GAME, a 1967 Newberry Honor medal winner that I had never read as a child. Though not strictly a mystery, it's wonderful read that captures the sense of imaginative play in childhood yet juxtaposes it with a sense of lurking danger. It reminded me in parts of To Kill a Mockingbird, as the protagonists play near the store of a Boo Radley-esque figure. If you missed this one along the way, I highly recommend picking it up!

Diana Renn: I've just started NOWHERE GIRL, a new middle-grade novel by A.J. Paquette. It's about a girl who is born into a Thai prison, and who must leave and make her way in the world after her mother dies. While this is not a traditional mystery, or even marketed as such, I think there is a strong undercurrent of mystery here. I'm intrigued by the personal mysteries that 13-year-old Luchi Ann must solve, since her mother kept the past a secret from her daughter. How did Luchi Ann's mother end up in prison, and why didn't she want her daughter to live out in the "unsafe" world? Who and where are their other family members? These questions are very compelling to me, as is the foreign setting.

Elisa Ludwig: This week I'm reading INCARNATE by fellow Apocalypsie Jodi Meadows. I'm just starting to get into the meat of the story but it's a fascinating otherwordly story of a girl who discovers she's the only one on her planet who has not been reincarnated and is on the hunt to discover just why she has been born. Lots of mystery, intrigue and a truly exotic setting.