John’s swept up in her detecting when a wealthy, brown-skinned classmate enlists their help in the mysterious disappearance of her beloved show dog, Daisy. Oddly loquacious, brusque, and extremely observant, Shelby's locally famous for solving mysteries. begins inauspiciously, as before he's even finished moving in, his frizzy-haired neighbor blows something up: ' BOOM!' But John's great at making friends, and Shelby certainly seems like an interesting kid to know. Now, with his parents' divorce still fresh, the boy who's lived only on military bases must explore the wilds of Harlem. John's an Army brat who's lived in four states already. Indeed, Amy Anne’s narrative is positively laced with real titles that have been banned or challenged and further enticing teasers for them.Ĭontrived at some points, polemic at others, but a stout defense of the right to read.Ī modern Sherlock Holmes retelling brings an 11-year-old black John Watson into the sphere of know-it-all 9-year-old white detective Shelby Holmes. Characters frequently serve as mouthpieces for either side, sometimes deadly serious and other times tongue-in-cheek (“I don’t know about you guys, but ever since I read Wait Till Helen Comes, I’ve been thinking about worshipping Satan”). Spencer, a despised classmate’s mom, to a qualified defense of intellectual freedom at a school board meeting: “Nobody has the right to tell you what books you can and can’t read except your parents.” Meanwhile, as more books vanish, Amy Anne sets up a secret lending library of banned titles in her locker-a ploy that eventually gets her briefly suspended by the same unsympathetic principal who fires the school’s doctorate-holding white librarian for defiantly inviting Dav Pilkey in for an author visit. Frankweiler has been removed from the library at the behest of Mrs.

In a tale that is dominated but not overwhelmed by its agenda, Gratz takes Amy Anne, a young black bibliophile, from the devastating discovery that her beloved From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. A shy fourth-grader leads the revolt when censors decimate her North Carolina school’s library.

Ban This Book by Alan Gratz