An entire novel built around a pre-algebra lesson. How inefficient.
Michael D. Beil. The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2009. 304 pages. Age 9 to 12.
Let’s call this an almost-review. I almost read the whole thing, but can’t comment definitively because I skipped out on the ending. Not that my opinion is definitive. That’s okay. Neither is yours.
I picked up this book because its jacket promsied two things I love: puzzles and math. And it delivered, but I found the puzzles a little too
E
LV
SO
TO
SY
EA
Or should I say,
SYAE OT VOLSE
Admittedly, I’m 28 years old, and while not Mensa material, I’ve solved a few puzzles in my day. I’m not the target audience. All the same, I found the simplicity of the puzzles a little condescending. Or maybe it was the fact that whenever they figured out one of these obvious “puzzles” it was all high-fives and accolades, like they cracked some impossibly complicated cipher.
And what’s with having an entire chapter dedicated to the Cartesian coordinate system, explained in painstaking detail? There were—count ’em—seven graphs, not to mention a take home problem. (“The solution is on page 197, but try it yourself before you peek.” As if we’re so anxious to find out what x and y equal that we have to skip ahead…)
My conspiracy theory-oriented mind is half convinced that the whole mystery is an elaborate casing created to disguise a single math lesson. (Its inefficency renders that improbable, but still.) Considering the target audience probably hasn’t learned these concepts yet, an explanation is clearly necessary; but why couldn’t we get enough information to follow the plot and leave well enough alone? Maintain the balance between creating interest and causing boredom.
Enough about the math. I hope most readers will be sensible enough to skip the chapter rather than abandon the story. You know, like I did.
The novel’s Catholic school girl detectives were exemplary, upstanding citizens—nod to Nancy Drew. No rebellious smoking in the bathroom here. There was one uncomplicated social/family problem per main character, which was a little too tidy for my taste. The characters weren’t boring, though. I love the narration. Light, youthful, benignly sarcastic, and laden with parenthetical remarks. (Not that I’m a fan of those.)
Quoatable—
“Undoubtably because she feels sorry for pathetic little me, Margaret agrees to put off going to the church to look for the sheep until we are finished at the museum. (That sentence must sound totally bizarre to someone who just randomly opened up to this page to see what the story is all about. Go back and start at the beginning!)” (p. 104)
