I So Don't Do Spooky
Grade 6–8—Sherry Holmes Baldwin, the 13-year-old heroine of Summy'sI So Don't Do Mysteries(Delacorte, 2008) is back for a second reluctant round of detection. When her mother—a ghostly coed at the Academy of Spirits—asks Sherry to help her find out who is stalking Sherry's stepmother, a task set upon her by her Academy guidance counselor, the teen agrees, even though her relationship with "The Ruler," who teaches at her middle school, is often strained. Guided by her spectral mother as well as her ghostly grandfather, Sherry goes undercover at a neighboring junior high school's robotics club meeting, certain that one of their members is behind the torment. After several meetings with Mom and Grandpa and the intervention of a teen psychic and a ghost-hunter, Sherry finally solves the mystery, though by the last pages of the novel the identity of her stepmother's stalker almost seems like a moot point. Not tightly written or clever enough to be considered screwball, and with not as much attitude as Meg Cabot's "Mediator" series (HarperCollins), this story doesn't satisfy as a mystery or as a supernatural thriller.—Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, BostonCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.