Believe it or not, I’ve been keeping up with this blog for more than 9 years. The world has moved on to Instagram and Twitter and Podcasts, and yet I remain, still comfortable with this outdated form at a time when fewer and fewer people seem to want to read much of anything, especially blogs.
We’re in deep summer now, when readership of my blog hits an annual lull. Things are going to be quiet here for the next 6-8 weeks, and will pick up again when schools get back into session. Heaven knows that Staples is already gearing up new commercials urging us to get out and purchase our school supplies. Do you not have your notebooks yet? New crayons? Kleenex boxes?
But let’s resist that for now and just quietly work on our tans. Shall we?
In terms of news, Booklist offered up a review of the new Jigsaw Jones book, The Case from Outer Space, coming out this August. It’s so tepid I don’t know why they bothered. Oh well. I did get a kick out of this line:
“The story rambles a bit in a completely amiable manner . . . .”
Guilty as charged!
Illustration by R.W. Alley from THE CASE FROM OUTER SPACE.
–
Here’s the full review, which did nothing to cheer my soul:
Junior detectives Jigsaw Jones and his friend Mila take on a new case after two classmates discover space- alien-related clues in their neighbor’s Little Free Library. When their teacher starts dropping hints about a “special visitor from far, far away,” the stage is set for the big reveal at the book’s end. The story rambles a bit in a completely amiable manner, but this isn’t the sort of mystery that readers are expected to solve by examining the clues and deducing the improbable but inevitable solution. Fortunately, it is the sort of mystery that will please Jigsaw Jones fans, who know they can count on the series for likable characters and a bit of a challenge here and there. For example, when Mila passes an encoded note to Jigsaw, he explains the substitution cipher she used, and then lets readers decode it on their own. With short sentences, bits of humor, and engaging illustrations, the latest early chapter book in Preller’s long-running Jigsaw Jones Mystery series has plenty of appeal for young independent readers.
