Thin Wood Walls
by David Patneaude
from Houghton Mifflin
Eleven-year-old Joe Hanada likes playing basketball with his best friend, Ray, writing plays and stories, and thinking about the upcoming Christmas holiday. But his world falls apart when Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor. His country goes to war. The FBI takes his father away. And neighbors and friends in his hometown near Seattle begin to suspect Joe, his family, and all Japanese Americans of spying for the enemy. When the government orders people of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast to move to internment camps, including Joe and his family, Joe turns to the journal his father gave him to record his thoughts and feelings.
Someone Was Watching
by David Patneaude
from Albert Whitman & Company
In one fleeting, sickening moment, the Bartons' precious 3-year-old girl, Molly, disappears, and judging from the coloring book floating down by the dock, she is lost forever to the river. One evening, about three months after "the Incident," 13-year-old Chris Barton watches the family-vacation video he made in the last hours of Molly's life. Clues in the background--including the appearance of a white ice-cream truck--don't add up, and Chris becomes convinced his sister is still alive. With the help of his best friend, Pat, he sets out to track her down, despite his parents' grief-weary refusal to even consider the possibility that little Molly is anywhere but in the river. What follows is a riveting journey, where the boys are on their own in a heroic, terrifying, nail-biting adventure. The events that unfold in this suspenseful mystery will have kids reading under the covers with a flashlight well into the night. Fans of David Patneaude's Someone Was Watching won't want to miss his other books, The Last Man's Reward and Dark Starry Morning. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson
Deadly Drive
by David Patneaude
from Albert Whitman & Company
Nine years ago, a hit-and-run driver killed Casey's mother. Casey swears revenge if she ever finds out the identity of the driver. Complicating her feelings, every year on the anniversary of her mother's death, Casey receives an anonymous envelope full of money. Is it blood money—from her mother's killer?
Casey, who shares her mother's passion for basketball, is busy with practice and her new team. Still, she finds time to spend with her beloved neighbor, Megan, who helped care for her when she was younger, and with Megan's daughter Dulcie. When it looks like Megan's computer might contain a clue to the identity of her mother's killer, Casey feels confused and betrayed.
Framed in Fire
by David Patneaude
from Albert Whitman & Company
A Piece of the Sky
by David Patneaude
from Albert Whitman & Company
(Ages 10-13) Russell's summer seems doomed. He's stuck in small-town Oregon without a movie theater, a baseball park, or a pizza parlor. Then a legend about an old meteorite envelops him-and connects his grandfather's special rock and old map to a nearly blind ex-con who did time for manslaughter.
Eventually Russell, along with his new friends Phoebe and Isaac, makes a dangerous trip into the mountains to find the meteorite, rumored to be rare and valuable-and perhaps the same "piece of the sky" discovered by Russell's great-great-great-grandfather. When the dangerous Full Moon Mullins, also on the hunt for the meteorite, overtakes them, the expedition turns into a matter of life or death.
Best-selling author David Patneaude uses the Port Orford meteorite legend to connect themes of history, family love, and wonder in this action-driven page-turner. A Piece of the Sky is sure to appeal to Patneaude's large number of middle-grade fans.
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