Look Into My Eyes by Lauren Child. Pub. HarperCollins, 2011.
Ruby Redfort is a smart cookie, in fact she is every smart cookie’s smart cookie. Smarter than the average bear you might say, and you would be right. Got the picture?
Ruby is constantly bored, she needs a challenge and she gets one. Her passion in life is solving mysteries especially those that are in code. She notices detail and has a logical mind. One day she gets a mysterious phone call that is in code. When she solves this code she is hired by a mysterious group called Spectrum who ask her to analyse a file that a previous agent was working on before she was killed in an avalanche. What a way to go!
Meanwhile Ruby’s parents are obsessed with a jade art object that is coming to town, their house is completely stripped in a burglery, the house keeper kidnapped, and a new house manager (butler) called Hitch is hired. How are all these things connected? Well Ruby has to work it all out and she does.
Short chapters, snappy & wiity dialogue and Ruby’s home spun philosophy make this mystery novel a treat to read for primary and intermediate students. The character of Ruby originally appeared in Lauren Child’s novels about Clarice Bean and this looks like it will be a series too.
I will leave you with with some words that appear on one of Ruby’s T-shirts. “some days stink!” but not today.
Trash by Andy Mulligan. Pub. David Fickling Books, 2010.
This is a stunning novel about poverty, life, corruption and survival in a Third World nation. No country is named but it is most likely the Phillippines.
The reaction you have when you finish the story is Yes Yes Yes! If you have seen the film Slumdog Millionaire then you have got the picture.
Raphael, Gordo and Jun Jun live and work in the dump of a large city. They sift the rubbish as it comes in hoping for a big find that never comes for most. They are dirty, diseased and live an appalling life style.
One day Raphael finds a wallet containing 1100 pesos, an encrypted note, a key and an identy card. The next day police are around asking about it, offering a reward and Raphael consults his friends Gordo and Jun Jun as to what to do. Because of the urgency shown by the police they decide to unravel the clues given and see what can be found.
What they unravel will leave you breathless and keep you reading till the end of this tension filled story. It also has a book code to break amidst the action.
A story in five parts narrated by all three boys and an array of characters that fill in crucial parts of the story. It is a story of corruption by high ranking politicians, police and even lesser officials and is probably the way things are in many Third World Countries. The fact that three dump kids can outwit them all, is the most appealing part of the story.
One of the best novels for school years 6/7/8 and even junior high school that I have read this year. It exposes a world we rarely think about but should know about. You will not regret reading this beauty.
