VVMBookBlog

(This has been posted before by Ms. Moeller, but that’s because she’s faster at getting these Maud Hart Lovelace books read than I am! Two more weeks until school starts. I’d better hurry!)

I’ve heard good things about this story, and I agree that it is a good mystery with lots of suspense. Stevie and Susan Carol are 8th graders who won a writing contest to go to the USBWA (like NCAA) Final Four and be members of the press, including filing feature stories for some newspapers.

Stevie and Susan Carol, accompanied on this trip to New Orleans by their fathers, didn’t hit it off right away; Susan Carol’s favorite team ever was Duke and Stevie’s most UN-favorite team was Duke and anything connected to Duke. But eventually they go on to try to solve the mystery of a conversation they hear in the back hallway of the arena: Why is Chip Graber, star player of the Minnesota team, being blackmailed into throwing the final game of the tournament? (Note: Their success is made possible by the apparent lack of attention by their fathers of what they are doing when and where, but that’s another story.~~MC)

In real life the author, John Feinstein, is a sportswriter for the Washington Post and a sports commentator for National Public Radio, so sports is his world. Readers of this book really get a feel of things that go on at a Final Four weekend, including the personalities of the famous sportscasters and lots of behind-the-scenes activities. And, of course, there are the exciting moments in the basketball games. Check this interview of John Feinstein by the Time for Kids website.

And now we need to read the next one called Vanishing Act where Stevie and Susan Carol are together again and involved in a kidnapping incident.