Undercover!

Emma Is on the Air #4

by Ida Siegal

This is Emma Perez, and I'm ON THE AIR! I found a clue about a "lost princess" in the Jefferson Market library, and now I'm using my extra-famous reporter-detective skills to go undercover and find her!

Emma Perez solved Javier's wormburger mystery, found Sophia's Lion costume, and tracked down her dance teacher's special tambora drum. Now she'll have to learn an extra-special reporter how to go undercover to solve a case! Can she find the "lost princess" at her library -- without getting into big trouble?

It's time for a new edition of EMMA IS ON THE AIR!

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2016

Reviews

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I thought was going to be a very boring story was rather entertaining and very good. Emma is a young girl that hosts her own online news channel. Emma finds a story book with a cryptic clue in it that leads her and her friends to an off-limits tower in a New York City library. Along the way, Emma learns about a famous female reporter Nellie Bly, and how she went undercover to break a case wide open. Emma goes undercover to solve the clue left in the book. Along the way, Emma discovers who the anonymous source is as well as a new friend.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this for my youngest last year because of the adorable cover, and later picked up a few in the series for our library because we've need series for early chapter book readers with protagonists of color. After finally reading one, I'm a little disappointed. It's a cute story, with a mystery that became more interesting in the last stages - and the second graders who've read the book liked it - but it lacks a lot from a literary standpoint, including basic details about the main character and the series itself. How old is Emma? What grade is she in? Does she have special permission to carry a cell phone at school? We didn't find out until the end that Emma's dad is a journalist, which inspired her to start doing online news reports.

At any rate, it's not a book for adult fans of children's literature. Kids like it fine.