Maggie M. Larche

Striker and his friends go to sleep-away camp and have a variety of adventures there, including water balloon fights, talent shows, and more.

This book is presented in 10 chapters, each of which contains a minor mystery, such as who anonymously bought Striker a bag of popcorn. By the end of each chapter, Striker has figured out the solution, usually using some type of economic concept like supply and demand, scarcity, specialization, etc. Some of these were a bit of a stretch, but it's still a learning opportunity cloaked within something fun. The mysteries are almost more like riddles than detective fiction, so it's something to get the juices flowing for readers.

The stories are fairly simplistic, but sometimes it's nice for young kids to have a book with manageable concerns (instead of the big "problem" novels). There are some diversity issues -- it appears that all characters are white, as well as several references to "Indian" something-or-other and "Chinese lanterns." There's also an odd mention of the kids singing "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" in the bus. While popular when I was a young kid, I don't think this little ditty is considered PC enough to be widely used nowadays. Just my two cents.… (mehr)

Most little kids and teens love a parade. Most grown-ups like them too. Who can resist the music, the treats tossed to the crowd, and the floats?

THE MARDI GRAS CHASE, a novel for middle grade/tween readers by Maggie M. Larche, has parades and a whole lot more. The story opens with Melanie Smythurst and her friends, Kate and Faye, watching the Mardi Gras parade, when Melanie notices that some of the letters on the floats are backwards. She gets to wondering why. Is it a code of some sort, a secret message? There’s one way to find out. So the three girls set out to solve the mystery of the letters and discover a lot more than they anticipated.

Maggie M. Larche has created believable characters that aren’t perfect. The girls make mistakes. They get in trouble. Like normal kids do. They’re ambitious and don’t give up easily when problems arise. THE MARDI GRAS CHASE is a fun story that should appeal to adventuresome young readers, who might even find themselves trying to help Maggie and friends solve the mystery of the letters.

This book would make a nice addition to school libraries, public libraries, and of course your personal library.

THE MARDI GRAS CHASE is the 1st book of the True Girls’ Series.

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Striker Jones has a knack for solving everyday mysteries. He may not have the exact vocabulary for it, but his ability to solve these mysteries is always based on his innate understanding of economic concepts.

Striker Jones begins with a beach day right before school starts and continues on to various episodes in the titular character’s life through the end of the school year and the beginning of a new summer vacation. There is no over-arching plot but instead a series of vignettes. Each vignette presents a mystery that Striker solves, with its solution involving economic concepts.

For instance, in the first mystery, Striker’s classmate Zack finds an Indian arrowhead along the pier at the beach. Excited by this find, Striker’s friend Bill offers to trade a baseball card with Zack in exchange for the arrowhead. But later, when Zack sees Bill swimming near the same pier, he gets worried that Bill will find another arrowhead and nullify their earlier agreement to trade. In a panic, he shouts “shark!” and watches as everyone gets out of the water. Striker smells something fishy and realizes Zack’s true motivation. Through this story, children are absorbing lessons about barter, scarcity, etc. Larche avoids intimidating children with grown-up economic vocabulary, but the lessons are there nevertheless and a teacher or another adult could choose to elucidate by explicitly introducing and defining economic concepts. (In fact, Larche also has a teacher companion to Striker Jones available for just that purpose.)

In terms of layout, the book is interactive in that each story ends by asking children how Striker figured out a mystery, and then waits another page to give the solution and wrap up that particular storyline. As seen in the example given above, the stories are very much the kind of things kids are used to – picking teams for dodgeball, meeting the new girl at school, making holiday crafts at school, a school field trip, and so on – thus illustrating how economics lesson can truly be found in everyday activities.

As mentioned earlier, there is no over-arching plot, but the book seems like a cohesive work, not a cobbled-together effort. There is consistency throughout as the story progresses chronologically and as characters re-appear. The cast of compelling characters includes Striker’s friends, classmates, teachers, parents, a pretty girl who Striker admires, and a rival who often gets his comeuppance. Striker Jones himself is a character readers will be bound to love – he is down to earth, likeable, funny, willing to help people out (he won’t rat out their secrets if they promise not to do a wrong deed again), and knows his strengths (logically reasoning problems out to solve mysteries) and weaknesses (singing!).

Striker Jones is an excellent text for older elementary students beginning to grasp more and more complicated economic concepts. Through its easy flowing narrative with lots of conversational dialogue, children will learn to see that economics affect their daily life far more than they realized!

I reviewed this book for EconKids. Read the full review (and many others) here: http://econkids.rutgers.edu/older-children-and-young-adults-2011/2077-striker-jo...… (mehr)