I read my first Blue Balliett novel last year – Hold Fast – and absolutely loved it.
Balliett has another hit with The Danger
Box, another story about a unique, very likeable kid who helps to solve a
mystery and save the day.
Zoomy is a twelve-year old boy who lives in the small,
quaint town of Three Oaks, Michigan, with his grandparents. He was left on
their front porch as an infant, with a note that he was their grandson, though they
hadn’t seen their son, Buckeye, in a long time. Zoomy and his grandparents are
happy together, with their little family of three, and Zoomy helps out in the
family antique shop in town. He is something of an odd boy (from the way he’s
described, it sounds like he has a form of autism), but he manages with the
help of notebooks, purple pens, and lists – lots and lots of lists. The lists
help him feel more in control.
Zoomy also has a Danger Box, a small wooden cherry crate filled
with old shotgun shells, pieces of blown-up firecrackers, and other treasures.
One day, their peaceful life is shattered when Buckeye unexpectedly shows up
after more than a decade away. He brings an old wooden box into the garage and
asks his parents to hold it for him. Inside the box are a tattered old blanket
and a very old notebook with a leather cover. Given Zoomy’s own collection of
notebooks, he is fascinated and tries to decipher the old-fashioned handwriting
in it, eventually adding it to his Danger Box.
Meanwhile, Zoomy makes his first friend, an energetic girl
bubbling with enthusiasm named Lorrol. Zoomy and Lorrol are very different, but
they are both lonely and love the library and find that they get along well
together. They start a newsletter filled with clues to a mystery person and
soon the whole town is trying to guess who it is.
Like Hold Fast,
this is a complex plot with a mystery at its center and plenty of family drama.
The reader goes along for the ride as Zoomy and Lorrol try to unravel the
mystery, all while they become good friends and try to save Zoomy’s family. In
a puzzle within a puzzle, the reader also gets to read the friends’ newsletters
and try to solve that mystery as well. It’s a gripping, compelling story that
pulls you right in and doesn’t let go. The old notebook that Zoomy finds is
actually a real historical artifact that was stolen many years ago, and it adds
to the thrill to know that parts of Zoomy and Lorrol’s mystery is real.
301 pages, Scholastic
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