The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City
by Tara Lazar ill by Ross MacDonald
Following up on her hit picture book 7 Ate 9: The Untold Story Tara Lazar brings readers another clever take on our alphabet system, specifically capitalized letters. Readers are treated to a noir style whodunit. Private I is informed by Question Mark that the capital letters are missing. ALL of them. Our intrepid detective is on the case. This was serious. If all the capital letters were gone, there’d be incomplete sentences dangling everywhere. |
The super sleuth begins to search for clues, hoping to enlist the assistance of punctuation marks. They are busy. Hyphens dashes around, apostrophe gathers personal possessions, while ampersand minds her p's and q's. Lazar is a master of the well-placed pun. Eventually Private I returns to waitress little b at Café Uno. Together they locate the missing letters and rescue them from a theater marque. "I'd always wanted to see my name in lights." Tranquility is restored. Or is it? The final page suggests that there will be more mysteries for Private I. | |