Book Summary (from the back of
the book)
The Jinson twins, Joe and Debbie decide to start a business during their
summer vacation, hiring themselves out to do odd jobs. They find themselves in
an odder job than they counted on when Mrs. Gray, who lives with her talkative
parrot, the Captain, in an old house down off River Road, engages them to help
clean out her basement.
Aided by their friend, Mr Benjamin, the proprietor of the Resource
Recovery and Recycling Center (a.k.a the junkyard), the twins use the clues
that Mrs Gray’s late husband, a former sea captain, left behind to figure out,
using scientific principles, where the captain hid his enormous collection of
antique Spanish gold coins.
But some other people know about the treasure too and have no intention
of letting an old lady who spends most of her time with a parrot, an old man
who runs a junkyard and a couple of kids get the treasure.
My Review
I got this book through the Member Giveaway program at LybraryThing.com,
but with the moving and what not I forgot I had it!. I saw the description of
the book, and it got me at “sciences detectives”
The story is told in the voice of Debbie. One thing I have to mention is
that a couple of time this changed for a paragraph, to being told by a third
person, and then back to first person (Debbie) without any apparent reason. I
guess this just slipped from the editors. Other than that I have to give it to
Zeicher, I felt like listening to my 12 year old cousin, and I imagine the fact
the he is trained in pediatrics and has 2 daughters gave him the practice to
know how a 12 year old girl would express herself.
This twins, besides being smart, are not out of the ordinary twins, no
special language, no reading of each other thoughts, which I actually liked a
lot, because all they do during the mystery is trough thinking, and I love a
book that promotes this. After a “long” time where it looks like no-one is
going to hire them, they get a call from Mrs Gray an elder lady who needs their
help. Along they find the treasure of a map, that her husband promised to her.
Here is where Mr. Benjamin, an engineer, comes to help them. Now, why wasn’t
him in a more “science” field instead of engineering, I don’t know. With the
author’s background in microbiology I was expecting another career for the
person pushing the scientific method, but that’s just me.
The book actually makes reference to a real research article (including
the URL at NCBI, I’m geeking out here, sorry) and I loved that. Extra points
for the last part of the book where you can do an experiment to evaluate the
speed of sound.
I think this is the type of book I would love to read to my future
daughter and hope that she also falls in love with science, or at least
understands where my love is coming from.
As a bonus, you can check this interview with the author on Wired
magazine.
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