The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York (With Each Other)

June 15, 2015
Plush-toy abuse, a sudden jelly bean shortage, severe rule-bending, and several near riots punctuate a helter-skelter scavenger hunt as the preteen Tapper twins again go head-to-head (The Tapper Twins Go to War (with Each Other), 2015). What starts out as a well-meant fundraiser for a food bank quickly devolves into warfare as, for a prize of four front-row seats at any upcoming Madison Square Garden event (!), the students of Upper East Side's Culver Prep Middle School team up and fan out with an excellent (if Manhattan-centric) list of New York City sites famous and obscure to visit and small artifacts to gather. The story is cast as a multivoiced oral-history transcript with interspersed texts, bulletin board exchanges, documents, maps, side comments, and snapshot photos. The hunt takes driven sixth-grade president Claudia Tapper's team from Bloomingdale's ("photo of a price tag for item over $100,000") to a hyperexclusive eatery in Greenwich Village, while her twin, Reese, and his short-attention-span buddies ramble around lower Manhattan, with a brief interlude locked (long story) in a New Jersey-bound delivery truck. By day's end it looks like the snotty and unscrupulous Fembot clique has copped the tickets-but Rodkey works several ingenious twists into the climax to put the win into the unlikeliest of hands. And seeing certain badly behaved parent chaperones receive just deserts adds to the fun. Squired by rival sibs who are, at worst, frenemies, this dizzy tour mixes glimpses of glossy and relatively obscure Big Apple attractions with mishaps aplenty but no (permanent) harm done. (Fiction. 10-12)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 4-6-Tapper Twins, Claudia and Reese, are back with another oral history. This time, they are working together, sort of. They need to set the record straight since they and their school, Culvert Prep, were victims of some irresponsible, biased reporting in the local papers. It seems the scavenger hunt, Claudia's brainchild, which raised over $8000 dollars for a local food bank, has been mis-reported. Yes, the scavenger hunt across most of the boroughs of Manhattan brought out the worst in the Culvert Prep students (and some parents) who were competing in it. Yes, it makes Mr. Tapper look like The. Worst. Parent. Ever. Really, all is not as it seems! Everyone-not just native New Yorkers-will enjoy this madcap, uproarious romp around the Big Apple, thanks to the maps and landmarks. As in The Tapper Twins Go to War (with each other) (2015, Little, Brown), the twins' story unfurls here in photos, texts, and interview transcripts. It won't take long for fans of the first installment, or new fans, to drop right into the action, hilarity, and mayhem. Really, where else would readers find one twin locked in a truck headed to New Jersey with half a school mascot and the other twin befriending a paparazzo stalking a pop star, not to mention fisticuffs between rival Times Square Flubbies? This title booktalks itself. VERDICT A definite purchase.-Brenda Kahn, Tenakill Middle School, Closter, NJ

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