Tag Archives: SavvyReader

Zap! by Martha Freeman (2018) – BR00175 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
January 11 2020

Plot or Premise

A blackout hits New Jersey and two kids try to figure out both how it happened and how to fix it.

What I Liked

The level is middle-grade and moves along at an okay pace. The cause of the blackout comes down to computers, and the solution is relatively straightforward without seeming too simplistic. Good interesting characters, for the most part.

What I Didn’t Like

There’s a plot hole in the solution — without revealing spoilers, the solution might fix homes and businesses but it wouldn’t have fixed the street lights, for instance — but it’s a small quibble. The real challenge is the level of exposition that is frequently dumped heavily into the story. Since they’re kids, they don’t know the “details” so everything they find out, they ask someone to explain it to them. At length. It really slows down the pace. The book tries to ramp it up a bit with a bit of suspense and violence, but they seem more amateurish than threatening.

The Bottom Line

Okay, but expect most middle-graders would find it slow.

Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (2018) – BR00174 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
January 11 2020

Plot or Premise

A young girl who lives with her aunt and uncle is sent under mysterious circumstances to a resort hotel for Christmas break.

What I Liked

The story has a bit of a Harry Potter-esque feel to it at the start — things happening that seem magical, parents dead, not very nice relatives, and leaving on an adventure. The resort hotel is called Winterhouse and is an amazing place to hang out for a vacation. There’s another kid like her who enjoys puzzles, and she meets a few interesting characters who either live at the hotel or are other guests. The magical elements are “just right” (not too much, not too little).

What I Didn’t Like

I chose it as it is an Edgar Award nominee, and it was a bit disappointing that there are two plot inconsistencies, almost like no one did a continuity edit on the book for point of view. At one point, Elizabeth doesn’t know anything about what’s going on or why her aunt and uncle have “sent” her to Winterhouse, but then she later reveals that she overheard her aunt and uncle talking about it the previous week and she knew everything there was to know (someone else paid them to send her). In another spot, two characters are revealed as the schemers, but another character knew all about her arrival and some of her backstory, yet didn’t know the biggest piece which is the only reason he would know anything about her at all. Finally, if you have ever read a male-centric story and felt like the woman had nothing to do but be a damsel in distress, you’ll feel the same way seeing the other kid be completely irrelevant to the story. He adds a bit of Fifth Busines background info, as do some puzzle guys, but pretty lame. I am not sure the constant word puzzles add anything to the story; they didn’t for me, but were easily tolerated.

The Bottom Line

An okay book, will likely read the next two in the trilogy.