A Gift of Magic

A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan

Three kids are given special gifts from their deceased grandmother: magic, dance and music. They gradually discover these gifts. They have settled down in the town where her mother grew up after her mother and father separated. (Previously they had traveled regularly as the family followed their dad around in a job as a foreign correspondent.) The dancer is able to quickly exhaust the training ability of the local ballet instructor. The girl with the gift of magic can read people's minds and influence outcomes. She gets in trouble when she completes a test before the teacher dictates the questions. She then goes to ESP testing and gets every question wrong. The tester realizes that she has has strong ESP powers and is trying to hide them, so he drops the testing. The boy with the gift of music doesn't do much with it. He can play anything with minimal effort, but doesn't bother to learn to read music. 

The girl with the gift of magic realizes that she can actually cause people do do things when she impacts her teacher. Later she feels guilty for wishing her sister would not go away for dance - and then sees her fall down the stairs. She is able to redeem herself when she is able to hear her brother when he is about ot drown as he is stuck on a sand bar as the tide is coming in. She helps lead his rescue and also learns that her sister will make a full recover and the injury is not her fault. She gains peace with the fact that her parents are not getting back together and will mary others. In the end, her mother has a new daughter, Lois, who has the gift of storytelling. (The author plugged herself into the book.) 

The book does a nice job of using just enough magic to advance the story without letting it become overwhelming. 

The Twisted Window

The Twisted Window by Lois Duncan

A mysterious boy from New Mexico shows up at a Texas high school and hits on a girl. This set off a stream of events that leads to a kidnapping and an understanding of the boys mental illness.

The boy had loved his half sister. He did not get along with the step father. His parents had separated. However, the step father came to his half-sister's birthday party and gave her a stuffed animal. This really upset the boy (who had given the half-sister her favorite stuffed animal.) He drove off in a huff and accidentally ran over his half sister. The boy only has one friend, a girl named Jaimie (We don't learn this backstory until the end of the book.) The boy had somehow convinced himself that his stepfather had stolen the half-sister and taken her to Texas. 

The boy had enlisted the help of a girl in Texas who looked like his friend Jamie. She was to spy on her step-father and see if he had the girl. They end up finding the signs of a toddler in the father's relative. The boy is convinced this is his half sister. The girl babysits for the family and they use that opportunity to take the girl to bring her back to New Mexico. On the way, the girl becomes suspicious and tries to call the boy's family and learns some of the backstory and has someone come to help them. At the time, the boy got suspicious and went to his house in the cabin. They end up meeting out there and after some conflict, it seems to have a happy resolution, the details of which are never mentioned.

The book has believable characters and is carried out in a suspenseful way. It does seem to have some minor updates which are a bit distracting. (The boy has a cell phone, yet they still plan on watching movies on a VCR.) 

Movie for Dogs

Movie for Dogs by Lois Duncan

Andrea enters a writing contest for young pet lovers and comes in second place. First place was the neighborhood bully, Jerry Gordon, which made it worse. To make up for this, her brother works with her to make a movie for another dog contest. They end up becoming a finalist, along with another girl at the school. At first, they think the girl is a girlfriend of Jerry (thought they later learn otherwise.) When they go out to the studio, they also meet a talking dog. Unfortunately, the video is not able to be shown because Jerry appears in it and refuses to sign a release form. Eventually, they discover from a jilted girlfriend of Jerry's cousin that Jerry's book was just copied from an old book. Andrea wins the prize. The talking dog also stops talking and they end up getting it from the other contestant. (This dog makes a great therapy dog.) 

This book rehashes much of what was in the other books in the series. It starts to get a bit predictable.

News For Dogs

News For Dogs by Lois Duncan

This sequel to Hotel for Dogs was written a few decades after the original. It has the kids and dogs progressing just a few months after the previous book, but is now set in more modern times with technology such as cell phones. The kids decide to create a newspaper about dogs. They find that the gossip attracts the most attention and sales. However, they do take things to far. They also "doctor" some items (such as making a meat loaf recipe more 'dog appropriate') They get in trouble for some of these actions. Their parents make them shut down the paper. Then they discover that dogs are being kidnapped and the owners are asked to leave ransom in library books. With their aunt they trace the perpetrators of the crime. The bully's cousin, who appears so nice on the surface,  is in town doing community service at the library to atone for previous fraud crimes. They use detective work to find the dogs and capture the bullies. The author of the book is known for crime books and has combined that interest with this late-career Hotel For Dogs sequel. It is engaging, though I cringed at some of the stupid things the kids did with their paper.

Hotel For Dogs

Hotel For Dogs by Lois Duncan

Some kids move from New Mexico to the east coast. They start by living with their Aunt, who is allergic to dogs. This saddens the kids, especially the girl who misses her dog at home. Nearby, there is an empty house as well as the house of a spoiled bully. The bully has a nice dog who he treats poorly. A stray dog sneaks into the house. The girl takes care of her for a bit as she discovers she is having puppies. They need to get her out, so they decide to create a "hotel" in the abandoned house. Later after the bully really mistreats his dog, the dog runs away and wants to die. The kids rescue him and bring him to the hotel. Other kids and dogs eventually assist with the hotel. The kids also work jobs to help support the dogs. One night they plan to scare the bully with slides of a "ghost dog". Shortly after, the realtor is showing the parents a house, which happens to be the "hotel". They are afraid all has gone wrong. However, it ends up working out. The bully confessed to his cruelty, the parents are interested in buying the house and to cap things off, the girl gets a poem published (at an age younger than Shakespeare's first publication.) It all makes for a very happy ending.

Killing Mr. Griffin

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

I listened to the audiobook and heard them mention google and spellcheck. Wasn't this book published in 1978? Ah it was, but it was "modernized" in 2010.

Mr. Griffin is a tough English teacher. He went to Stanford and was teaching at a college. He decided to go to a high school in order to improve the education of students before they reach college. He is not easy on students and even the best students get worst grades than they expect.

One student gets the idea of "roughing him up." They plan to kidnap him so that he will beg them for mercy. Then they expect him to be a kinder student. The ringleader sings to always have the right answers. A few others join in, including some of the best students at the school. After school, they abduct him and drive him up to a secret place they know of. He refuses to do what they want, so they leave him there until after the game.

When they do go to see him, they find he is dead. They rely on the ringleader, Mark, to come up with a plan. He says they will bury him, then leave the car at the airport. They take his wallet and Stanford ring. They will spread stories to imply an affair. Mark seems to always have the right ideas. The others feel they are now committed and need to go along. Alas, the lies keep catching up with them. Somebody discovers the body and the missing ring. Mr Griffin's wife identifies holes in the story. Mark tries to fix some the problems by killing a grandma, and then trying to burn a house with one of the co-conspirators in it. The group finally discover they have been following a psychopath murderer. Their attempts to hide their actions only made matters worse. The message is that you should do what is right and watch for psychopaths. In reading it, I just wondered why it was taking some of the kids so long to fess up. They felt guilty and did not want to keep going, yet they felt a need to get the advice of the psychopath.