<i>Girl’s Best Friend</i> (review)
2011; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 64; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2011.0356
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Themes in Literature Analysis
ResumoReviewed by: Girl’s Best Friend Deborah Stevenson, Editor Margolis, Leslie. Girl’s Best Friend. Bloomsbury, 2011. 261p. (Maggie Brooklyn Mysteries) ISBN 978-1-59990-525-9 $14.99 R Gr. 4–7. Seventh-grader Maggie Brooklyn Sinclair is keeping a secret from her parents—she has a small but lucrative business walking dogs after school in her lively Brooklyn (yes, she’s named for the borough) neighborhood. That business means she’s the first to realize when a rash of dognappings hits the area at the same time as some strange pet-related phenomena—a hostile and aggressive competing dog-walker, a dog-selling business, and a new vet desperate for customers—that begin to seem connected. Reluctantly helping out Ivy (former friend, now enemy, whose beloved dog has gone missing), Maggie seeks to solve the mystery while maybe getting a date with cute classmate Milo. There’s appeal galore here in the combination of usual domestic travails (Maggie’s scorning by Ivy, her crush on Milo, her friend Lucy’s interest in Maggie’s twin brother, Finn) with a crime wave that’s sure to strike at the hearts of young readers without sending their nervous systems into overdrive. Maggie is a well-crafted heroine, normal enough to relate to while still possessed of the wit to provide wish-I-had-said-that dialogue (to a nosy adult asking her age, she retorts, “I’m none of your business . . . and a half”). The mystery itself pushes logic a bit, but that’s par for the course for junior sleuthing, and the elements, including the obligatory red herring, accumulate in a tidy and satisfying pattern. This is the kind of good, solid mystery that slides neatly into a weekend or summer evening, and readers will be pleased at the hints that Maggie’s likely to return in future adventures. Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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