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Sesana

Sesana

Currently reading

Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke
Siege
Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel
Scrivener's Moon - Audio
Philip Reeve
Betrayal at Cross Creek - Kathleen Ernst, Jean-Paul Tibbles This'll be for the whole series, which is probably a silly way to do it. There's a lot of different authors here, after all, and the only thing these books have in common is the publisher and that there's some sort of mystery. Each book is set in a different time and place with a different character as the lead. The mysteries vary from smaller and less important (The Night Flyers) to very high stakes indeed (this one, for example). The quality of the mystery varies, too. Some of them fall into the "how dumb do you think we are?" category, but most of them are more sophisticated than that. The target age for readers here is young teens, and I think that's a good spot. I liked (almost) all of them reading as an adult, and I would have just eaten these up at 12 or 13. And I really liked the range of mostly thoughtful, entirely determined girls saving the day. The history angle is fantastic, and I dearly love that the books focus on more than just easily visible events, times, and places. Sure, there's a gold rush book, but there's also books about Reform Dress and early 20th century minstrel shows. Like I said, a good variety. The Looking Back sections that are a trademark of the American Girl books (this is where my love of history comes from) are as informative and interesting as ever. The only thing I'd add here is a further reading page at the end, especially since these are meant for slightly older readers.