Sammy Keyes #1-18

by Wendelin Van Draanen

From Book 1: "The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)" —Midwest Children's Book Review

What Sammy should have done was put the binoculars down and call 911. What she does instead is tighten up the focus on her right eye to get a better look. There's something very familiar about this thief.

But when Sammy eventually spills her story to Officer Borsch, he doesn't believe her. He treats her like some snot-nosed little kid. Well, Sammy's not going to stand for that. She's a snot-nosed seventh grader now, and she knows what she saw. And somehow she's going to prove it.

The Sammy Keyes mysteries are fast-paced, funny, thoroughly modern, and true whodunits. Each mystery is exciting and dramatic, but it's the drama in Sammy's personal life that keeps readers coming back to see what happens next with her love interest Casey, her soap-star mother, and her mysterious father.


From the Hardcover Library Binding edition.

Kindle Edition

About the author

Wendelin Van Draanen has written more than thirty novels for young readers and teens. She is the author of the 18-book Edgar-winning Sammy Keyes series, and wrote Flipped which was named a Top 100 Children’s Novel for the 21st Century by SLJ, and became a Warner Brothers feature film with Rob Reiner directing. Her novel The Running Dream was awarded ALA’s Schneider Family Award for its portrayal of the disability experience.

Van Draanen's latest book, Hope in the Mail, is part memoir, part writing guided, designed to encourage aspiring writers to pursue their dream.

Van Draanen is also the author of two short chapter-book series. The Gecko & Sticky books, are fun read-alouds, perfect for reluctant readers, and the Shredderman books—featuring a boy who deals with a bully—received the Christopher Award for “affirming the highest values of the human spirit” and became a Nickelodeon made-for-TV movie.

Van Draanen was a classroom teacher for fifteen years. She and her husband reside in California and have two sons.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of mysteries stars 7th-grader Samantha, a feisty girl who lives secretly with her grandmother in a seniors-only building. There are things I dislike about the series including disrespectful attitudes, deceit, and really mature situations (murder, teen pregnancy, gangs). The series does have some redeeming qualities, however. Sammy shows growth and maturity over the course of the series. She lies less and less. She comes to a greater understanding of her absent mother. She even becomes friends with the police officer. Loyalty and other good character qualities are eventually admired and demonstrated. The mature situations are likely things that an intelligent middle-schooler will pick up on in the news or other sources and they are handled at an appropriate level. Still, I will continue to supervise the reading of these stories.

[Mercy Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the entire series, the last book made me cry so hard. I nearly threw the book. As a writer I thought the ending was very well written, as a reader I hated the ending, I need more, more Sammy Keyes book, I have always wondered what happened to Sammy Keyes after the last book.