This
spring when educator friends went to IRA in Chicago I was jealous. As tweets
came out about the advanced reading copies they found, there was one in
particular I was dying to read, Capture
the Flag by Kate Messner.
See when
I first joined Twitter almost three years ago, I somehow found Kate then. Her
new book, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z was coming out that September.
I knew she was a teacher. I still remember going to Barnes and Noble and seeing
the book on the shelves, taking a picture and tweeting it to her after I bought
it. She said it was the first viewing of it in the wild. J
After reading and falling in love with Gianna, I shared it with my school librarian. She decided to base our family reading night around it and Kate agreed to Skype with our school. It was wonderful and cemented me forever as a fan of Kate Messner.
Along the
way she has written more amazing books – Sugar and Ice, the Marty
McGuire series, Eye of the Storm, Sea Monster’s First Day, and Over
and Under the Snow. I have purchased and loved them all. So now you can
understand my jealousy of the wonderful friends who were reading Capture the
Flag!
Flash
forward to yesterday. John Schu had Kate visit his blog to
discuss the new book. Kate even posted
on the Nerdy Book Club discussing her love of reading and researching. (There
is a giveaway of the book on both blogs!) I was quickly checking again to see the release date
for Capture the Flag, had they miraculously moved it up to June 1st?
Nope, still July 1st. Then someone tweeted gratitude to Kate, Capture
the Flag had been delivered to their mailbox today. The seed of hope was
planted. Sometimes Scholastic sends me copies of her books ahead of time, but
they are delivered to school. I raced to school, said hello to our wonderful secretaries,
and turned to my mailbox. I let out a loud, “WOO HOO!” which made them jump. A
package! It was here!
Quick
goodbyes all around and I drove home. I told their boys they were on their own
for a bit and dove onto my bed to read.
How to quickly summarize this book is difficult. It reminded me of the National Treasure
movies (and one of the kids even said that in the book.) Three children; Anna,
Jose, and Henry, meet at the start of the book. All of them are from Vermont
but are in Washington D.C. at an event their parents (or aunt) has been invited
to at the Smithsonian. Once the event is over someone steals the famous flag
that inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner”. This is announced on the news the
next day when the kids and their families are at the airport trying to fly
home. However D.C. has been hit by a blizzard and all flights are cancelled.
The children at this point meet each other and then eventually decide that if
they are stuck, the culprits might be stuck too. At first they are only
casually trying to solve the crime. But as they get personally involved, and
the stakes rise, they race against time (and flight departures) to finish the
job.
I loved
the story. It was a fast paced adventure. There were small lessons woven in
throughout the book that would make this an excellent read aloud to a class. My
only disappointment was at the end of the book. I had grown attached to these
characters but I was still wondering what was going to happen to them. To my
great delight Kate tweeted yesterday that yes, there is a sequel. So thrilled
about that. I could see this as a wonderful series. I think if you have
students who enjoy this they would also like C. Alexander London’s Accidental
Adventure series or Tom Angleberger’s hilarious Fake Mustache. I highly,
highly recommend this book.
