Author: Barrie Summy
ISBN: 978-0-385-73602-2
Publisher: Delacorte Press

Click Here To Purchase I So Don't Do Mysteries

Losing a parent can be both devastating and traumatic for a young child. But, equally as difficult when the other parent decides to remarry a year after the other parent’s death. But, when your now single father decides to marry your math teacher, appropriately called, The Ruler, what is a teenage girl to do. All this brings me to I So Don’t Do Mysteries by Barrie Summy.

As the story unfolds we meet thirteen-year-old Sherry whose father is about to marry her math teacher. Her math teacher is a rule conscious, never bending woman. She intends to make sure that both Sherry and her younger brother Sam learn to live and breathe by her rules. This has Sherry quite upset. Added to that she wants to spend her vacation anywhere but San Diego with her great-aunt. But circumstances are about to change, and so do her well thought out plans to get to know her dream guy Josh Morton over her vacation.

Sherry is angry and like all teenagers runs out of the house while her father and his fiancé are talking and discussing their plans for her vacation. She climbs her favorite tree and the unexpected happens.  She begins to smell coffee. Not just any coffee, but the coffee her mother used to drink. Then she hears a voice, her mother’s and begins to think she is hearing things.

She does hear a voice and it is her mothers. You see, she is a ghost who can communicate with only Sherry and she has a serious problem. Sherry’s mom was a police officer. She was killed in the line of duty and sent to spend eternity working for the Academy of Spirits solving mysteries. But, she has a problem She is flunking out of school and failing her classes. In order to remain in this school and not get banished to an afterlife for ghosts who are failures, Sherry needs to help her solve a serious case at the Wild Park. Someone is poisoning the snacks given to the Rhinos and no one seems to know who or why. Sherry has to team up with her mother and her grandfather, to solve this case without telling anyone about her mother.

Now, that is totally impossible for a teenage girl and we all know that. In order to survive on this trip and not let her mother down, she invites her best friend Junie and her cousin Amber join her in San Diego. Now, the fun begins.

Sherry’s mom and coincidentally her new stepmother are quite similar in that they are both devoted to their jobs and both quite organized and rule oriented. Sherry is not. Sherry is bumbling, not quite the A student you would want and often feels inferior and not effective in anything that she does. Sherry is scatter brained but can use her mind to be resourceful and clever and she does when dealing with difficult situations in this book. She underestimates herself.

Going to San Diego and trying to find out who is killing the rhinos won’t be easy but she manages to connect with the right people. She is resourceful and smart. She talks her way out of some really difficult situations. Her main goal is to save the rhinos. But, as the suspects mount up they come in the most unlikely places.  A group of harmless looking senior citizen, a famous French chef is just a few of the suspects that she encounters. Not discounting the man behind the entire caper who no one suspects.

Looks can be deceiving and Sherry’s mom convinces her that a famous French chef is going to serve rhino meat at a dinner. A group of senior citizens pretend to be rhino warriors hoping to protect the rhinos from harm. In reality, all is not what it seems.

Junie, who now believes what Sherry, told her about her mother and grandfather being ghosts helps Sherry in her detective work to find out who is behind the killings of the rhinos. In between Sherry manages a date with Josh, convinces him to help her and works in the kitchen with the chef in order to uncover who is involved and more. The results are hilarious.

The goal is to stop the poachers from killing the rhinos and the chef from serving rhino meat at a dinner. The plan that Sherry devises with her friend Junie and Josh does not work out the way they planned.

In order to save her mother’s afterlife, safe the rhinos from the poacher and protect herself and her friends from harm, Sherry uses all of her intelligence and ingenuity to succeed. What does happen and who is really involved and why? You are going to have to read the book and find out for yourself.

Relationships are important and they take work to form and to last. This is not only a story about solving a mystery, but one of fostering a relationship with two women for Sherry her mother and her stepmother.

This is a great book that teaches children and adults that it is never too late to forgive, forget and love.

Click Here To Purchase I So Don't Do Mysteries