Do You Know the Monkey Man?

June 1, 2005
Gr 5-8 -Samantha was three when her twin sister drowned in the local Iowa quarry and her father left. Now 13, she is determined to investigate the past, because her mother refuses to talk about it. Best friend Angela, not all that happy with her own absentee father, can't see what the big deal is, but is willing to help her in her investigation. Despite the fact that Sam and Angela defy parental authority, cross state lines, navigate public transport, and convince more than one person that the impossible is possible, there's not much detecting going on. The clues fall into Sam's lap. Searching into the past is not an unusual plot in children's books. Still, Butler has a simplicity of narrative voice that makes the story easy to read while reflecting the often-complex emotions of children forced to deal with things that have long been buried. It is the way that the author conveys these emotions that provides the most lingering memories of this fast-paced suspense novel." -Carol A. Edwards, Douglas County Libraries, Castle Rock, CO"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2005
Gr. 5-7. When Samantha was three years old, her twin, Sarah, drowned in a local quarry while canoeing with their father. The grief rocked her parents' already tenuous marriage. Her mother and father divorced, and Samantha, now 13, hasn't seen or heard from her dad in 10 years--with the exception of a postcard picturing a monkey from the San Diego Zoo. After trying various methods to find her father, Samantha and a friend visit a psychic, but Sam comes away confused by the psychic's revelation that her sister isn't dead. Sam's pursuit for the truth, which includes an Internet people search, leads her from her Clearwater, Iowa, home to Minnesota, where she finds her answers. The healing comes a little too easily in the end, but middle-graders looking for a simple mystery will be pleased, and the story may inspire them to think about the concepts of identity and family that are threaded through the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2005
Unnerved by her mother's impending marriage, thirteen-year-old Sam begins to pry into old family tragedies. Why doesn't her father ever contact her? What really happened ten years ago when her twin sister died, and why was her body never found? Eerie coincidences and melodramatic revelations power this fast-paced, but often predictable, mystery about loss, discovery, and forgiveness.

(Copyright 2005 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)