Kaleidoscope Eyes
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4.4 • 11 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Will Lyza’s 1968 summer mystery lead to . . . pirate treasure?
When Lyza helps her dad clean out her late grandfather’s house, a mysterious surprise brightens the sad task. In Gramps’s dusty attic, Lyza discovers three maps, carefully folded and stacked, bound by a single rubber band. On top, an envelope says “For Lyza ONLY.” What could this possibly be? It takes the help of her two best friends, Malcolm and Carolann, to figure out that the maps reveal three possible spots in their own New Jersey town where Captain Kidd (the Captain Kidd, seventeenth-century pirate) may have buried a treasure. Can three thirteen-year-olds actually conduct a secret treasure hunt? And what will they find?
In a tale inspired by a true story of buried treasure, Jen Bryant weaves an emotional and suspenseful novel in poems, all set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War during a pivotal year in U.S. history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Growing up in New Jersey during the Vietnam War, 13-year-old Lyza has some battles of her own ("Whoever said 'the baby of the family/ gets all the sympathy'/ was clearly not/ the baby"). When her mother walked out, "our family began to unravel/ like a tightly wound ball of string." Then Lyza's grandfather dies, leaving her a box filled with cryptic maps and clues, which she learns relate to the pirate treasure of Capt. William Kidd. Lyza and her best friends Carolann and Malcolm get to work locating and then hiding the treasure. Lyza's thoughtful narration in verse gives Bryant's (Ringside 1925) novel a strong sense of setting and reflects the teenager's conflicting emotions about adulthood: "I had to decide/ to stay safe in the harbor, like my father,/ or to push out to sea, like Gramps." Her observations also betray an engaging sense of humor (Denise, her older sister, "has no interest in anything/ she can't smoke, wear, or sing"). Sincere and well-paced, with the backdrop of a tumultuous period in history, the story is not easily forgotten. Ages 9 13.
Customer Reviews
History report
I'm reading this book for a history project .......... So far so good