First Clues: Mysteries for Kids is delighted to introduce a new feature for our website, book reviews written by students. These students offer their unique perspective on the book in their review and provide a valuable resource to parents looking for new mystery adventures for their kids to read.
Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf by Wendelin Van Draanen
The Sammy Keyes Series
Random House (Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-375-80255-X (037580255X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-375-80255-3 (9780375802553)
Publication Date: May 2000
List Price: $5.99
Review written by Emma, Age 11, Grade 6. Date of review: October 2008.
Review: Wendelin Van Draanen and her sly character, seventh grader Sammy Keyes, are at it again with the mystery of Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf. This book and series are mainly for 5th through 8th graders. It is the fourth book in the series.
The main characters in the story are Sammy Keyes, Mrs. Landvogt, and all of Sammy’s companions and enemies. In the beginning of the story Sammy is in a float at the parade in a city called Santa Marina when the dog suddenly runs away and does not come back. Sammy looks for the dog but instead finds a little girl who mysteriously is all alone in an elf costume. Now Sammy has two mysteries to solve: where the dog went and who this girl is. In the end it all works out for Sammy and the most unexpected person turns out to be the criminal.
This book was good in a way that I always wanted to keep reading because in every chapter there was always something that wasn’t laid out in the text and you had to make an inference. But sometimes the text was not clear as to who was speaking at a given point. This made it very hard to follow and went back and forth for two pages without stating who was speaking and I had to look back in the text to find out who was talking and it wasted a lot of time doing that. But still overall it was a very good book and I never got bored reading it. This book was very detailed by giving specific colors, sights, tones of voices, and feeling of the characters. If you decide to read this book, which I consider it, expect to find many mini mysteries in every chapter.
If you are looking for an interesting and lovely book, choose the Runway Elf. I really enjoyed it and hope to read the whole series.
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First Clue Mysteries is pleased to provide information on nearly 100 mystery series for children and young adults. Each series is conveniently listed under three different age categories (New Sleuth, ages 4 to 7; Future Sleuth, aged 7 to 10; and Sleuth in Training, ages 10 and older). If you have a favorite mystery series you'd like to see added to our site, please contact us.
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