The Danger Box
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4.9 • 9 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
An all-new mystery from the bestselling author of Chasing Vermeer and The Calder Game!
A boy in a small town who has a different way of seeing.
A curious girl who doesn't belong.
A mysterious notebook.
A missing father.
A fire.
A stranger.
A death.
These are some of the things you'll find within The Danger Box, the new mystery from bestselling author Blue Balliett.
Open with care.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Balliett's (Chasing Vermeer) latest mystery spotlights the life of Charles Darwin with a boy's investigation into a stolen scientific notebook. Zoomy Chamberlain, 12, has bad eyesight, a touch of OCD, and a need for structure ("he smallest changes can make me jittery-splat, as we call it"). Left on his grandparents' doorstep as an infant, his coping mechanism is keeping all kinds of lists. His highly ordered world implodes when his alcoholic father reappears, arriving with things to sell at the family's antique store. One item captures Zoomy's fascination a careworn notebook. Sensing the journal's author is a kindred spirit, Zoomy researches the journal's provenance, as the man from whom it was stolen closes in. The tension derived from the danger facing Zoomy is halted by faux newspaper articles that offer biographical information about a "mysterious soul," but which read like didactic asides. As in her previous novels, Balliett sets the action in a real town, Three Oaks, Mich., and details about the setting add appeal. Interestingly, the notebook Darwin used during his 1835 visit to the Gal pagos Islands really is missing: it disappeared in the 1980s and is classified as stolen. Ages 9 12.
