Review of SUMMER AT FORSAKEN LAKE 

 From Kirkus Reviews:

Summer is indeed a time for mystery and adventure. Instead of spending the summer with their divorced father, 12-year-old Nicholas Mettleson and his younger, identical twin sisters leave New York City and head to rural Ohio to live along Forsaken Lake with their great-uncle Nick, an arm amputee who never misses a beat. It's not long before Nicholas teams up with local star baseball player Charlotte "Charlie" Brennan, and the pair discovers numerous mysteries. These involve an unfinished Super 8 film entitled The Seaweed Strangler, a sailboat that eerily appears each morning at 2:53, a boat accident that caused Nicholas' then–14-year-old dad never to return to Forsaken Lake and a letter that hints at a long, unrequited love between Nicholas' dad and Charlie's mom. Reminiscent of Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks (2005), the charming narration has a timeless quality as Nicholas and Charlie involve the small-town community in completing The Seaweed Strangler and investigating the now-infamous boat accident. Also drawing from Arthur Ransome's 1937 children's nautical adventure, We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, the novel features its own sailing hazards and thrills. Ultimately focusing on what's right rather than the truth, the appealing story leaves one big mystery unsolved, promising a sequel and more summer magic. (Artwork not seen.) (glossary of sailing terms). (Mystery. 9-12)

Reviews of The Mistaken Masterpiece

From Kirkus Reviews:

Reviews of The Ring of Rocamadour

From Booklist (starred!)
A familiar heroine - the girl detective - gets a fresh look (red blazer!) in this delightful debut. Narrator Sophie and her pals Margaret and Rebecca go St. Veronica's, on the Upper East Side, where, one afternoon in English class, Sophie screams. She has seen a ghostly face in the church window across the courtyard. The woman is real and needs help. She is estranged from her daughter but has found something that could bring them together: a card, the first in a series that leads to a scavenger hunt wrapped in clues about religion, literature, and math, with a museum-quality treasure at its end. Beil, an English teacher, does a lot of juggling here. Besides the mystery, there's Sophie's incipient relationship with a boy friend who is morphing into a boyfriend, as well as her pals' family problems. The girls have to make sure others with more nefarious motives don't find the treasure before they do. The dialogue is fast and funny, the clues are often solvable (except, oy, the math), and even though a bunch of the adult characters are stereotypes, they work in the context of the mystery. More Red Blazer Girls, please.
� Ilene Cooper

 From Children's Literature

Here's a fun mystery in the tradition of Nancy Drew, except that these four twelve-year-old detectives are much more hip. All are students at St. Veronica's on Manhattan's Upper East Side: Sophie St. Pierre is the book-lover and writer, Margaret Wrobel is the brilliant one, Rebecca Chen has artistic talent, and newcomer Leigh Ann Jaimes excels at acting. Wearing their St. Veronica's crimson blazers, the friends get drawn into an intriguing puzzle to help an eccentric lady who lives next door to their school and church. Clues (which the girls decipher by using math and language skills) lead them into a treasure hunt through the church (sometimes at night), dangerous escapades, and some narrow escapes. If those are not enough to occupy them, they have to keep up with their schoolwork, act in a scene from Great Expectations, elude suspicious characters, and fret about boys. Sophie (whose parents are a French chef and a violin teacher) is the first-person narrator with a lively voice and a sense of drama. She assures us that St. V's is "just a nice, ordinary, all-girl's school that just happens to be in a in a pretty expensive neighborhood," but these detectives are sophisticated, funny, endearing twelve-year-olds that you will not find just anywhere. Using their talents, with help from sympathetic English teacher, Mr. Eliot, and a very young Father Julian, the four friends outwit a conniving enemy and provide an entertaining read along the way. As Sophie remarks, "All quite normal. Right?" Reviewer: Barbara L. Talcroft

From School Library Journal

Melodramatic Sophia St. Pierre, uber-brainy Margaret Wrobel, and wisecracking Rebecca Chen are seventh graders at a Manhattan Catholic school. While sitting in her English class, Sophie spies someone in a window of the church next door, and she seems to be asking for help. The woman turns out to be a wealthy, elderly hippie who is trying to solve a 20-year-old puzzle. From that moment, these friends are embroiled in a mystery to find an ancient artifact, return it to its proper owner, and bring the villain to justice. The bright main characters have distinctive voices and unique personalities. Sophie is a witty narrator, whose asides, while sometimes distracting, are often as amusing as the long chapter titles. Along with sleuthing in the church, the girls are dealing with family and friend issues and first loves and preparing a Dickensian school skit. They get caught up in the engaging mystery, temporarily fall prey to misconceptions/misunderstandings, and proudly work out the teasing clues to find the treasure. This is a PG Da Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) clearly authored by a teacher (plenty of literary name-dropping) with a neat ending that is not immediately predictable. It's a clever way to combine some middle school math (graphs and grids included) with a fun mystery, great friends, and a bit of romance.-Danielle Serra, Cliffside Park Public Library, NJ

From Kirkus Reviews

Clad in their red high-school blazers, three friends become amateur sleuths who decipher an intricate puzzle leading to the priceless Ring of Rocamadour. Dramatic Sophie, brainy Margaret and artistic Rebecca attend the upper school at St. Veronica's all-girls' school in Manhattan, where they encounter the elderly, eccentric Ms. Harriman who lives next door. Ms. Harriman enlists the sympathetic trio to solve an elaborate puzzle her archaeologist father created 20 years ago. As the girls discover, the clues refer to objects or places in St. Veronica's and challenge their knowledge of religion, classical languages, math, literature, philosophy and art. For each clue solved, another is provided. As the girls get closer to the ring, they realize they aren't alone in their quest. Sophie's chatty, melodramatic first-person, present-tense narration provides comic relief to the pseudo-gothic tone, inviting readers to crack the clues while the girls use their wits and spunk to pinpoint the ring's location. Three plucky, clever heroines and one very intriguing puzzle equal lighthearted adventure with a modern twist. Move over, Nancy Drew! (diagrams) (Mystery. 10-14)

From New York Kids Timeout

Instead of detailing the lives of Manhattan's teenage "elite," what if Gossip Girl focused on a lower economic rung of NYC private schools? The result might look like Michael D. Beil's charming novel The Ring of Rocamadour, the first in his "Red Blazer Girls" series. Rather than concocting petty revenge fantasies, Upper East Sider Sophie and her pals discuss Dickens, algebra and, occasionally, boys. The story follows the girls' progression through a scavenger hunt laid out 20 years earlier by a historian for his granddaughter. His clues, which promise to lead to an ancient ring, challenge the girls to solve riddles and math problems all over the city. The mystery may not be riveting, but coupled with a budding middle-school romance, it carries just enough intrigue to keep the pages turning. Good thing, because Beil leaves the payoff-a swoony first smooch-until just before the last one.
— Julia Israel

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Reviews of The Vanishing Violin

From Kirkus Reviews: