Product Overview
Brooklyn, New York, 1951.
Twelve-year-old Pete Collison is a regular kid who loves Sam Spade detective books and radio crime dramas, but when an FBI agent shows up at Petes doorstep accusing his father of being a Communist, Pete finds himself caught in a real-life mystery. Could there really be Commies in Petes family? At the same time, Petes class turns against him, thanks to similar rumors spread by his own teacher; even Kat, Petes best friend, feels the pressure to ditch him. As Pete follows the quickly accumulating clues, he begins to wonder if the truth could put his familys livelihood--and even their freedom--at risk.
In the tradition of his Newbery Honor book Nothing But the Truth, Avis newest novel tells a funny, insightful story packed with realistic period detail of a boy in mid-twentieth-century America. Its unique look at what it felt like to be an average family caught in the wide net of the Red Scare has powerful relevance to contemporary questions of democracy and individual freedoms.
Twelve-year-old Pete Collison is a regular kid who loves Sam Spade detective books and radio crime dramas, but when an FBI agent shows up at Petes doorstep accusing his father of being a Communist, Pete finds himself caught in a real-life mystery. Could there really be Commies in Petes family? At the same time, Petes class turns against him, thanks to similar rumors spread by his own teacher; even Kat, Petes best friend, feels the pressure to ditch him. As Pete follows the quickly accumulating clues, he begins to wonder if the truth could put his familys livelihood--and even their freedom--at risk.
In the tradition of his Newbery Honor book Nothing But the Truth, Avis newest novel tells a funny, insightful story packed with realistic period detail of a boy in mid-twentieth-century America. Its unique look at what it felt like to be an average family caught in the wide net of the Red Scare has powerful relevance to contemporary questions of democracy and individual freedoms.
