Published
in 1998, the book won an Edgar Award for best children's mystery and
spawned a series of “Sammy Keyes” books for the author. It's got
all the qualities kids like in a mystery, and for the person who
wants to write in the genre, it's a must read. It will amply reward
you.
Kids
like to be smart, like to figure things out, love the “Aha!”
moment when they get it without having to be told. And Samantha, the
main character, provides them. The book has so many layers, so many
levels, and the author doesn't spell things out. She let's the kids
discover the story for themselves. There's the mystery of the hotel
thief, of course, and the questions about Samantha's grandmother and
why the girl has to pretend she's not there at nights and keep quiet
during the day.
There's
never a paragraph that says, “Samantha's mother dumped her on
grandma and went away to be an actress, but grandma lives in a
seniors only building and …” It's all there, spread out during
the course of the story, and the author trusts her young readers to
figure it out without her having to hold their hands.
And
that's the kind of thing kid readers love. They don't want you to
force feed them. They want to figure it out for themselves. The best
book I've read in this regard is “Holes,” which never overtly
comes right out and ties it all up in a neat package with a bow at
the end. The kids put all the pieces together themselves, and that
makes it all the more satisfying for them.
And
there's plenty of other stuff in the book, the problems with starting
middle school, and Officer Bosch, and Samantha's rich friend. All of
them add depth and complexity. There's a lot in it for a book that is
really a very quick read.
So
that's two things I picked up over the weekend from “Sammy Keyes,”
the need for layers and layers of story in the new project, and
several ideas have already occurred to me, and the advisability of
not spelling everything out.
Leave
the kids something to go “Aha!” about.
No comments:
Post a Comment