Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things

Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things by Van Draanen, Wendelin. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780375835254.

"The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)"—Midwest Childrens Book Review This is not the summer camping trip of Sammys dreams. She imagined shady glades, meandering streams, a deer or two. What she gets are scrubby shrubs, blazing sun, rattlesnakes, ticks, and scorpions. Her fellow campers are desperate to catch a rare glimpse of an endangered condor. To Sammy, the trip is nothing more than the painful in pursuit of the unspeakably ugly. But when she and two other girls find an injured condor, Sammys intrigued at last. As they track down a clue, they stumble onto two classmates and wind up lost. Which leaves three girls and two boys in a canyon with one tent and six billion biting flies. Oh—and an armed and dangerous highstakes poacher. Smores anyone? The Sammy Keyes mysteries are fast-paced, funny, thoroughly modern, and true whodunits. Each mystery is exciting and dramatic, but its the drama in Sammys 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.