Trial by Journal - Hardcover

Klise, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380978806 ISBN 13: 9780380978809

Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books, 2001

Synopsis

Forced to be in a courtroom all summer as a jury member for the trial of a man accused of killing her classmate, Lily Watson begins to worry if the victim is really dead or if something more mysterious is going on as his body had never been found.

About this title

About the Author:

Kate Klise lives in Norwood, Missouri, where she works as a correspondent for People magazine. M. Sarah Klise lives in Berkeley, California. Regarding the Fountain is the first book for young readers from this pair, who are sisters as well as collaborators.

From Publishers Weekly:

The sisters Klise once again use the format they mastered in Regarding the Fountain to cleverly recount Lily Watson's experience as the "first juvenile juror in the state's history." The sixth grader here records her experience as a sequestered juror for a research paper assignment, in order to avoid attending summer school. With little knowledge of protocol ("I have NO idea how to do footnotes or a bibliography, so you can forget about seeing any of that stuff"), Lily puts together a montage of her own journal entries plus newspaper clippings and formal and informal letters to and from jurors, as well as maps and pamphlets to trace the highly publicized case of a classmate's mysterious disappearance from the city zoo. The mystery's unraveling is fairly predictable, but the book's hyperbolic tone, all-in-fun parodies and hilarious illustrations (all of which center around an animal motif) will keep readers involved and entertained. At times the zoo theme becomes cloying (characters' names include Bob White, suspected of 11-year-old Perry Keet's murder, and Rhett Tyle, a parasitic mega-tycoon, as well as fellow jurors Fawn Papillon, an aging movie star, Anna Conda, designer of exotic fashions, and Bernie "Buzz" Ard, a gossip columnist). This three-ring circus, with Lily as capable ringmaster, will set in motion readers' flights of fancy from beginning to end, when a "wolf in sheep's clothing" receives his comeuppance and the innocent "jailbird" is set free. Ages 8-12.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0380978806
• ISBN 13: 9780380978809
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Illustrator: Klise M. Sarah