The Red Blazer Girls

June 1, 2009
Gr 5-8-Melodramatic Sophia St. Pierre, über-brainy Margaret Wrobel, and wisecracking Rebecca Chen are seventh graders at a Manhattan Catholic school. While sitting in her English class, Sophie spies someone in a window of the church next door, and she seems to be asking for help. The woman turns out to be a wealthy, elderly hippie who is trying to solve a 20-year-old puzzle. From that moment, these friends are embroiled in a mystery to find an ancient artifact, return it to its proper owner, and bring the villain to justice. The bright main characters have distinctive voices and unique personalities. Sophie is a witty narrator, whose asides, while sometimes distracting, are often as amusing as the long chapter titles. Along with sleuthing in the church, the girls are dealing with family and friend issues and first loves and preparing a Dickensian school skit. They get caught up in the engaging mystery, temporarily fall prey to misconceptions/misunderstandings, and proudly work out the teasing clues to find the treasure. This is a PG "Da Vinci Code" (Doubleday, 2003) clearly authored by a teacher (plenty of literary name-dropping) with a neat ending that is not immediately predictable. It's a clever way to combine some middle school math (graphs and grids included) with a fun mystery, great friends, and a bit of romance."Danielle Serra, Cliffside Park Public Library, NJ"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2009
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* A familiar heroinethe girl detectivegets a fresh look (red blazer!) in this delightful debut. Narrator Sophie and her pals Margaret and Rebeccago St. Veronicas, onthe Upper East Side, where, one afternoonin English class, Sophie screams.She has seen a ghostly face in the church window across the courtyard. The woman is real and needs help. She is estranged from her daughter but has foundsomething that could bring them together: a card, the first in aseriesthat leads to a scavenger hunt wrapped in clues about religion, literature, and math, with a museum-quality treasure at its end. Beil, an English teacher, does a lot of juggling here. Besides the mystery, theres Sophiesincipient relationship with a boy friend who is morphing into a boyfriend, as well as herpals family problems.The girlshave to make sure others with more nefarious motives dont find the treasure before they do. The dialogue is fastand funny, the clues areoften solvable (except, oy, the math), and even though a bunch of the adult characters are stereotypes, they work in thecontext of the mystery. More Red Blazer Girls, please.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)