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Good books, old friends

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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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Unfortunately, former teacher Wendelin Van Draanen's all-around brilliant Sammy Keyes mystery series for 5th to 8th graders remains one of the children's book industry's best-kept secrets.

Van Draanen has produced eight thrillers to date featuring wise-cracking Columbo wannabe Sammy (for Samantha) Keyes. A ninth is due in October.

Each book has been enthusiastically received by critics, teachers, librarians and the kids to whom it is recommended. The first, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (1998), won the Edgar Award for Best Children's Mystery.

It's a proven product.

However, publisher Alfred A. Knopf has yet to put much muscle into marketing the series.

I offer myself as evidence that almost anyone, regardless of age, who discovers Sammy will feel an instant affinity for her.

I forced myself to slowly savor Sammy's adventures over the course of two summers, knowing as soon as I started them I would never want them to end.

I know it's silly. But I am anticipating Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen with the same feverish excitement most of my adult patrons reserve for Janet Evanovich's newest Stephanie Plum novel.

So how can I convince you to add Sammy and company to your own inner circle of literary friends?

If you appreciate good characterization, knowing how difficult it is to come by in the usual run of juvenile formula fiction, you cannot help but be impressed by the dazzling creativity Van Draanen has brought to this aspect of her writing.

Sammy is inarguably every bit as distinctive and lovable a protagonist as Harry Potter or Junie B. Jones, a couple of her better recognized contemporaries.

A spunky 13-year-old who lives illegally with her grandmother in a senior citizens' high rise apartment building in the low-rent district of the fictitious Santa Martina, Calif., Sammy is the ultimate mischief magnet.

Mind you, she never seeks the trouble that seemingly dogs her every footstep. And luckily, her knack for blindly stumbling into criminal activity is complemented by her ability to determine who the perpetrator is.

Like Harry Potter's differentiating lightning bolt scar, Sammy's signature tomboy apparel sets her apart from the rest of the crowd. The whole concept of making herself attractive still foreign to her, Sammy is most comfortable in blue jeans and high-tops. She grumbles mightily when an occasion calls for anything else.

Whereas Harry has his owl, Hedwig, Sammy has her cat, Dorito. While he plays Quidditch among the clouds, her somewhat more earthbound sport of choice is softball.

How she would love to borrow Harry's invisibility cloak. To keep her grandmother from being evicted, she must enter and exit their apartment building via the fire escape. Likewise, she makes haste to the bedroom closet when there is a knock at the door.

Sammy also shares with Harry a Cinderella-like back story. Her single mother (Lady Lana) has abandoned her. While Sammy makes due on her grandmother's meager fixed income, Lady Lana is off in Hollywood trying to become a movie star.

Naturally, every now and again, Sammy yearns for a traditional nuclear family. However, readers are more likely to compare her to scrappy, streetwise Huck Finn than any fairy tale damsel-in-distress waiting for a glass slipper to magically transform her into a pampered princess.

No matter how scary her predicaments get, she always musters the courage to take on her own adversaries, fight her own battles.

Like Junie B. Jones, Sammy pulls double duty as both narrator and lead player. A typical teen who does not mince words, she comes quickly to the crux of whatever mess she is attempting to untangle. Before we can digest one significant event, she assails us with another. She pauses just long enough to let us catch our breath and share interesting tidbits from her personal life.

Although unintentional, Sammy also provides plenty of comic relief. Cliffhanger chapter endings aside, Sammy's inimitable descriptive powers are reason enough to read every book to the end.

In Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (2003), only brash and brazen Sammy would designate a standoffish, post-modern painter, who in Sammy's opinion is asking way too high a price for a rendering of an oversized dot, as the "Snotty Splotter."

Secondary characters you will grow to love or hate accordingly include Marissa MacKenze, Sammy's best friend since the third grade. Although Marissa is far better off socio-economically and embraces the femininity Sammy rejects, she is as loyal and devoted as childhood companions come. She subconsciously performs what Sammy has affectionately dubbed the "MacKenze dance" whenever she is nervous.

Ever sensible Rita Keyes (Grams) in A-line skirt and leather pumps is truly the only mother figure Sammy needs. Likewise, neighbor Hudson Graham, whose house and porch Sammy would love to call her own, more than adequately lends the paternal angle Sammy otherwise lacks. Sammy marvels at the 72-year-old's eccentric tastes in footwear and suspects he is sweet on Grams.

Sammy never knows whether or not to enlist the aid of grouchy, strictly-by-the-book police officer Gil Borsch in her efforts to keep Santa Martina's streets safe. He has, after all, ticketed her for jay-walking.

But Heather Acosta, with her dyed red hair and pitbull temperament, is unquestionably Sammy's archnemesis in the 7th grade class of William Rose Junior High School. They have hated each other since Heather made fun of Sammy's s high-tops on the first day of school.

The chief whodunit story line in each book is always as imaginatively and tightly threaded as it is plausibly resolved. The villains are neither obvious nor unlikely.

Irregularities that have sparked Sammy's incurable curiosity so far include everything from a 200-pound pet pig to a trio of singing nuns who perform church benefit concerts in black tights and purple boas.

I find the intriguing recurring sub-plots equally fun to follow.

What outrageously clever plan, I wonder, will Sammy hatch next to foil Heather's constant scheming to humiliate her? What clues will she get to her own unclear origins? How will each character and their relationships with each other continue to evolve?

Better yet, what universal question about life in general will Sammy attempt to answer at the same time she is trying to close out the particular case which poses it?

These substantive but breezy capers are the perfect lure for reluctant middle school readers. And, those experiencing along with Sammy the horrors of 7th grade will be more than glad to have the unapologetic misfit's guidance in dealing with that handful of Heather Acostas they too will inevitably encounter.

Here is the complete list of Sammy Keyes titles.

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (1998)

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man (1998)

Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy (1999)

Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (1999)

Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Mustache Mary (2000)

Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (2001)

Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (2002)

Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (2003)

Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (Coming soon!)

Kvasnicka, a former, East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the librarian at the Genesee District Library's Goodrich Branch.

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