The Postcard
Abbott, author of Firegirl (2007) and the Droon series, sets no easy task for himself with this book, which contains a mystery within a mystery. Thirteen-year-old Jason is heading to St. Petersburg to help clean out the house of a deceased grandmother whom he’s never met. As soon as he arrives, mystery meets him. Who are those odd people at the funeral? And what about the strange phone call that leads him to a tinted postcard of a Florida landmark about to be demolished? The postcard points Jason to several old manuscripts that tell the story of his grandparents’ romance. Or do they? Abbott plays with style as he alternates between the contemporary mystery of finding the manuscripts with the manuscripts themselves, written in a hard-boiled detective style. The result is sometimes too convoluted, but the book is so enticing that readers will go along even when the going is rough. Jason (paired nicely with a neighbor girl as sidekick) is a hero worth rooting for. Kudos, too, to the book’s designer, whose use of old postcards heightens the appeal. Grades 6-9. --Ilene Cooper