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Summary
Summary
In a trailer park called Adjacent, next to the Folsom Energy Plant, people have started to vanish, and no one seems to care. At first Lady Di and her best friend, Tom Jones, barely notice the disappearances--until their beloved math tutor, Mrs. Clarke, is abducted, too. Mrs. Clarke has left them clues in the form of math equations that lead them all over the trailer park, through hidden tunnels under "Mount Trashmore," and into the Folsom Energy Plant itself, where Lady Di and Tom Jones and a gang of other misfits uncover the sordid truth about what's really happening there. F&P level: Y
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-This clever and unusual mystery is tailor made for young mathematicians. Lady Di and Tom Jones live in Folsom Adjacent, a godforsaken trailer park named after the giant power plant that shares the small coastal island. When people start vanishing from this nuclear nowhere, the two 11-year-olds investigate, using mathematical cues left behind by their missing math tutor. Equations, right triangles, pi, coordinates, and slope help the kids and some of their similarly outcast friends negotiate a massive maze of underground tunnels to access the plant and discover a nefarious scheme that will destroy the island. Carey is particularly adept at creating setting: the landscape is raw, desolate, and nearly apocalyptic. Math moves the plot along, at times at the expense of character development. Replete with diagrams, charts, and illustrated problems, the book will appeal especially to kids who love geometry, but it will also reel in fans of less numbers-centric books such as Eric Berlin's The Puzzling World of Winston Breen (Putnam, 2007) or Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game (Puffin, 1992).-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This first novel's promising premise-Carey (a New York Times science reporter) uses mathematical equations and theorems as clues to a mystery-sinks under the weight of burdensome plotting and characters' hypothesizing. Spearheading the sleuthing are Di and Tom, seventh-grade misfits determined to find Mrs. Clarke, a kindly neighbor who helps them with their math homework, after she vanishes. The kids live in a bleak trailer park located beside an underground nuclear plant, made all the more unsavory by the nearby dump, Mt. Trashmore, "an entire rotting universe, reeking like sugary vomit." Deciphering notations left by Mrs. Clarke, the kids draw a map that leads them to underground tunnels, which they suspect hold the key to the woman's disappearance. The maps-simple diagrams that grow as information is uncovered-help elucidate their discoveries, yet digressions and a steady stream of data ("The Trashmore entrance was eight hundred yards above the x-axis. But the tunnel angled inward one hundred yards for every four hundred it moved downward") may dampen interest in what feels like an extended, if adventurous, story problem. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
After their math tutor disappears, Di and Tom discover a series of clues leading from their trailer park to a nearby power plant. As the two eleven-year-olds unravel the mystery, they learn about the Pythagorean theorem, slope, Cartesian coordinates--and a conspiracy. The math gets tough and the story sometimes feels overburdened with detail, but the characters are quirky and memorable. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
On the circular island where the Folsom Nuclear Plant is located, there sits a trailer park called Folsom Adjacent; not surprisingly, many of its colorfully boring residents work at the plant. Eleven-year-olds Diaphanta (Lady Di) and Tamir al-Khwarizmi (Tom Jones) get their wish for something exciting to happen when adults start vanishing from the population. The police department of nearby Crotona doesn't seem to care much, and most adults in Adjacent either work too much or drink too much or both. When their best adult friend Mrs. Clarke vanishes, she seems to leave behind a clue in a math puzzle, which leads to another clue in a math puzzle, and suddenly Di and Tom are taking on Folsom officials to foil an evil plot with a little help from theiracquaintances. Carey's debut is a brainteaser of a mystery full of quirky characters. Di and Tom are plucky outsiders with low self-esteem and overactive imaginations. By the third or fourth puzzle (they get progressively more difficult) things get a bit mathematically dense, but even reluctant mathematicians will enjoy this inheritor of The Westing Game. (Mystery. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Math is the key to solving the mystery in this fast-paced adventure about a group of seventh-grade misfits who discover secrets surrounding the energy plant next to their trailer park. After their teacher disappears, the kids stumble across mysterious clues that she left behind. Di, Tom, and three more classmates band together, and their sleuthing takes them through claustrophobic man-made tunnels, secret underground workstations, and horrifying mountains of trash before they finally expose a team of powerful and corrupt grown-ups. Computers are part of the detective work: essential clues are on the teacher's flash drive, and the details about how the kids crack the code and get the password will hook young readers. Science and math buffs will love the equations and charts, but even those bored by the technical details will be swept up in the fast talk and exciting action.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2009 Booklist