Posts

Showing posts from 2018

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #168: The Bike Tour Mystery (2002)

Image
Nancy, Bess, and George are off to Ireland for a bike tour, despite the fact that every single book makes it seem like Bess is too fat to walk around the block let alone cycle up and down hills. Since she's a detective, Nancy can't help noticing a guy with a missing pinkie finger getting off a flight from Australia. They then meet Bob, the leader of their tour group. He introduces them to all the others, including Natalie and her husband, Jim, from California, a college professor named Carl, and two Australian girls: Rhonda and Rachel. Nancy notices that Rhonda freaks out when they leave the airport after seeing some guy, but the girl calms down pretty fast. Bob then takes them to their first stop and where they'll spend the night. He introduces them to Derek and Camilla, two more riders and lays down the rules. Basically, everyone can ride at their own pace. Groups will get cell phones to stay in touch, but some people will ride more every day than others. That do

Sweet Valley Twins #55: Brooke and Her Rock-Star Mom

Image
Kids in Sweet Valley suddenly start going crazy about some new rock star from France named Coco. At the same time, Brooke Dennis is excited because her mom is coming to visit from France. See where this is going? She's bringing along her new husband Bobby and their daughter Sonya. When Brooke makes plans to meet her mom at her hotel, her mom tells her a big secret: she's actually Coco. Apparently, she took some voice lessons while trying to make it as an actress and got an agent who convinced her to move to France because Europe has a big need for American singers. He then helped her reinvent herself on her way to becoming a big star. She then meets Bernice, her mom's agent. Bernice tells her that they have to keep her mom's private life a big secret. No one knows that she is on her second husband or that she has kids. It would totally ruin her public image because rock stars don't have kids. I'm not making that up either. Bernice literally tells h

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #13: Chick-Napped (2008)

Image
Nancy, Bess, and George have a teacher named Mrs. Ramirez who decided to do a project on animals. She brought in eggs and an incubator and had the kids write journals about the eggs' development over the last few weeks. At the beginning of the book, it's time for the eggs to hatch. Tommy, one of their classmates, is super excited because he's obsessed with the chicks. He even wrote them poems and songs. Catherine, another girl in their class, is less than excited. See, it's actually her birthday and no one cares. Right when Mrs. Ramirez gathers the class together to sing her Happy Birthday, the chicks start hatching. Nancy and the girls feel bad for Catherine though and make her a super special birthday card. When they show up to class the next day, they find that someone defaced Tommy's special sign with a blue-green marker that smells like bubblegum. Though the girls do some investigating, they can only find a few people in class with that same color

The Baby-Sitters Club #98: Dawn and Too Many Sitters

Image
Dawn is back home in California and getting ready to head to her second home in Stoneybrook for the summer. She keeps thinking about how much she will miss Sunny and Sunny's mom, but she also keeps freaking out because she has so much stuff to do before she goes. Carol gives her a hug the morning of her flight and starts crying because she thinks of Dawn as a daughter. She also worries after having a dream that the BSC voted her out in favor of Abby and because she doesn't know how things will work with Abby there. Of course it turns out that she has nothing to worry about. Everyone shows up for her first meeting, and a bunch of members take her out shopping that morning. Richard and Sharon let them order Chinese food and pizza. Even Jeff seems happy to be back, if only because he loves running around with the triplets. Claudia had to take her math final over again and has some big news. The school signed up for a special program that offers a discounted rate for

Nancy Drew Case Files #22: Fatal Attraction (1988)

Image
I'm sure I've mentioned Brenda Carlton before in another review. She's a “reporter” for the local paper, which means that her dad owns the paper and lets her write. While on vacation with Bess, George, and Ned, Nancy gets a letter sent via messenger that asks her to meet someone unknown person at an abandoned drive-in theater. She naturally goes and meets Mr. Carlton. He explains to her that Brenda has a brand new boyfriend named Mike who's a guitarist. Mike is extremely shady about his past and doesn't seem like a good guy. They met while she was on vacation, and he then followed her back to River Heights. Mr. Carlton begs Nancy to check him out and make sure that Mike is good for Belinda. This involves going to the club and seeing him play. Brenda gets way too suspicious and actually accuses Nancy of going after him for herself, which causes Nancy to point out that she doesn't need some rando when she has Ned waiting for her. Just as Brenda loose

Sweet Valley Kids #65: Steven's Big Crush

Image
This is the only SVK book I've read so far that has Steven as the narrator instead of one of the twins. He's tired of his sisters being around all the time and gets them back on Valentine's Day. Steven puts a card in Charlie's lunchbox from Jessica and one in Todd's from Elizabeth. Charlie finds his and makes a big deal out of how gross it is, which makes everyone laugh at Jess. Todd just reads his and puts it away without saying anything. While taking the kids out for dinner, Ned and Alice tell Steven that they signed him up for dance lessons. His friend Bob has to go too. The twins act like huge pests and dance around him while drawing attention to him in the middle of the restaurant. Bob tells him that even if they have to wear a tie and long pants, they can still do something different and comes up with a plan. At his first lesson, the teacher pairs him with this girl Tina. He shows her their “plan,” which is that they both wore heavy hiking boots.

The Nancy Drew Notebooks #38: Candy is Dandy

Image
As a special treat for her class, the school arranged for the kids to take a tour of Zuckerman's Zonked, which is candy factory in town. Mr. Zuckerman, who inherited the factory from his dad, gives them a tour and lets them sample some new candies. He makes a big deal out of his new candy, which will last as long as an all day sucker, be as sweet as chocolate, and as chewy as caramel. After showing them the recipe, he puts it in his pocket and gives them a tour of the library. It's only after going through some recipe books that he realizes his own recipe is missing. Nancy names her first and primary suspect as Josie, a girl in her class who wants to run her own candy company one day. Mr. Zuckerman tells them that the secret ingredient is maple syrup, which is why Nancy gets suspicious walking by Josie's house that night and smelling maple syrup. Josie shows up to school the next day with a new candy that tastes gross. She wanted to recreate the recipe for him.

Sweet Valley Twins #69: Won't Someone Help Anna?

Image
Jessica comes to school one day and hears the principal shouting at someone. After saying that she hopes the person isn't in too much trouble, she learns that it's a new student. Before she can get too excited though, she learns that the new student is deaf. That turns her off because deaf people are as gross as fat people or something. When Anna Reynolds actually shows up, she kind of takes the school by storm. Elizabeth and her friends automatically welcome her and become besties with her, but Jess still thinks it's super weird. Once she meets her though, she realize that she's a cool girl. She even loves dancing and wants to start an aerobics club because she dreams of being an instructor one day. Liz asks Cammi to do an article on Anna for the paper. Cammi keeps putting her off with excuses and then heads home to her two deaf parents. Both she and her little sister can hear but use ASL to communicate with their parents. She gets really bitter about how

The Nancy Drew Notebooks #47: The Crook Who Took the Book (2002)

Image
It's Friday at Nancy's school, which means that it's library day. She instantly heads to the mystery section and picks out a Marvin Sandback book, her favorite author. Andy, one of the guys in her class, whines about how books suck and comics are always better. Their teacher then gathers them together with some news: Julia, the owner of the Book Nook in town, is Mr. Sandback's daughter and is having a big party that weekend to release his new book. She also wants to present him with a first edition copy of his very first book, which is rare and worth a bundle. Mrs. Marvin takes Bess and George, while Carson takes Nancy. They run into Anderson, who works there, and sees him with a fancy wood box. He tries to keep the book a secret until he learns that they already know, but then he refuses to let them see inside. They try to play with Charlie, the shop cat, but the cat freaks out and hisses at them. Sandback then comes in and has them all sit down so

Sweet Valley Kids #51: Lois and the Sleepover

Image
The twins are running around and playing like usual when they see Lois by herself. They pick her up and then run into Amy. Amy invites them all to come with her to the movies that night, but Lois can't come because her mom wants to take her to that movie over the weekend. She also reveals that her and her mom watched a movie together they night before and had more plans together. Her grandmother passed away, and since her dad is also gone, her mom depends on her a lot. Todd then shows up and invites them to come and play baseball with some other kids. Lois does really badly as usual but then helps make a double play. All the kids love her, but she needs to suddenly leave because her mom wants to take her to a restaurant for dinner. The twins feel bad that her grandmother died but feel even worse that her mom won't give her a break. It's in the middle of a major heat wave in Sweet Valley. The twins sleep in the den, which is the only room with an AC, and talk w

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #4: The Cinderella Ballet Mystery

Image
Nancy, Bess, and George are all taking ballet classes with Mr. McGuire, a former professional dancer, and random kids like Gregory, Deirdre, her best friend Grace, and Andrea. Gregory offers Bess some cookies and busts up laughing when she tries to eat one because they're fake cookies he took from his sister's play kitchen. He loves playing pranks on all the girls. Mr. McGuire comes in with some big news: the “glass” slippers he had specially made for the big recital just come in and he wants to show them off. Gregory launches one at Bess who freaks out when it drops because she expects it to shatter. The shoes are actually made from a type of hard plastic. Mr. McGuire tells them that no one can touch the shoes and yells at Deirdre for even trying to take photos. The other big news is that Autumn, the girl picked for the lead role, hurt her leg and can no longer dance. That makes Andrea, the understudy, the new lead dancer in Cinderella. Nadine, another dancer, fr

Sweet Valley Twins #96: Elizabeth the Spy

Image
All the kids, or at least all the girls, at SVMS keep hanging out at Casey's because they love Joe, the college guy he hired to work there. Joe is super friendly and nice to everyone. He gives them extra ice cream, makes the best treats, and he even volunteers as a clown to help out at the children's hospital and other places. Joe also got all the girls interested in brainteasers and keeps giving them puzzles to figure out. The only downside to hanging out there is Jeff Casey, the owner's nephew. He clearly doesn't like kids and keeps telling Joe to get to work and complaining about the kids wasting his time. Jeff interrupts them and tells Joe to do some work while complaining under his breath about how the shop isn't his yet. Joe needs to do a good job because he wants to cut out early for a performance. Jessica realizes that they are out of pads at a very inconvenient time and asks Liz to go and buy some more. Liz tells her no because she's all